


Too Many Fingers Pointing to Your Grave

by Eugara



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 1940s, AU, Banter, Bottom Dean, Detective Noir, F/M, Homophobia, Infidelity, M/M, Minor Character Death, No Lube, Organized Crime, Past Relationship(s), Shotgunning, Top Sam, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 21:52:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10908171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eugara/pseuds/Eugara
Summary: Noir AU.Singer’smay not be the most popular nightclub in this or any town, but at least it’s Sam’s. And with a new fiancée to provide for and a rotten string of bad luck perpetually hounding him, he needs all the breaks he can get. That is, until the night Dean Campbell, a hardboiled P.I. from Sam’s less-than-reputable past, walks in through his door. As people around town start turning up dead, Sam finds himself being drawn ever deeper into the man’s most recent case…and inexorably closer to the gruffly charismatic detective himself.





	Too Many Fingers Pointing to Your Grave

Sam lets out a long breath and rolls off of his backroom sofa, a slight sheen of sweat still clinging to every inch of him. He’s surprisingly warm, despite the freezing downpour he can hear outside, and it’ll probably be a few minutes more until the cold catches up with him.

He crosses the room in a few strides and slips his shorts on, forgoing his typical undershirt due to his overheated blood, then scrounges around clumsily for his suit pants in the dark. His fingertips happen to snag on the elastic of his suspenders and he pulls the entire bundle out, still attached to his slacks, from where they’d landed behind one of the inventory shelves—a little scuffed, but nothing too suspicious. The sound of Billie starting up a higher-tempo song pulses through the thin walls from the front room, and Sam yanks his pants on before the band grows tired and starts winding down. He’s been back here for far too long already.

Amelia will be expecting him home soon.

“Tell me, Sam,” the woman who is _not_ his fiancée purrs from where she’s still lounging across the cushions. “How does a nice, respectable gentleman like yourself end up with scars like those?”

Sam pauses in his dressing and curiously glances down at the skin he’s showing above the waistline of his trousers. Everything below his ribs is hidden by the dark wool, but he knows he’s got a fair amount of damage scoring his chest and shoulders as well. The faint lines zig-zagging pale over most of his flesh. Honestly, he’s surprised that she’s even able to make them out given the dim lighting in here. “I was in the war, Ruby,” he says flatly, snagging his shirt down from the ceiling fan and checking it for damage.

“You don’t act like you were in the war.”

He lets out a quiet scoff. “Everyone was in the war.”

“Yeah, but you don’t act it,” Ruby insists. She arches her back like a cat, still not wearing a single stitch, and languorously reaches over the sofa arm for her cigarette holder. “Everyone else has got their buddies,” she says, lighting up the end of it. “Their stories. You don’t even have a fancy title. No one calls you Sergeant Singer. Lieutenant Singer. Not even Corporal. It’s always just ‘Mister’. _Mr_. Singer, every time.” Ruby pulls in a long drag. “In the war, huh?” she exhales through a cloud of perfumed smoke. “You look it sometimes, but you never act it.”

Sam’s jaw goes tense for a second, but he slips his shirt over his shoulders before she can catch it. “I never made rank.”

“Private?”

“Private first class.”

She grins at him, sharp and seductive. Like she thinks she’s Mae West. “How’d you swing it?”

“Stayed alive for six months,” he says honestly.

Ruby has the audacity to laugh, the thick smell of sweetened tobacco swiftly suffusing the small room. “Is that all it takes?”

Despite the tactlessness of her words, Sam can still feel a flicker of amusement at the question. He doesn’t mind a hard time here or there. He’s used to it. “That’s all it takes,” Sam says. And it’s the truth.

“Private first class,” she muses, smoke leaving a sinuous trail through the air as she twirls her hand. “What’s the accolade for something like that?”

“You get to still be alive after six months. Trust me, it’s an admirable position.”

Ruby doesn’t let it go though, gesturing to one of the dog-eared potboilers scattered over his small side table. “You shoulda been an officer,” she says, “what with all these books of yours.” The butt of her holder comes a little too close to the pages as she points, so Sam stalks back to the sofa and plucks the cigarette from her hand, putting it out on the already ash-marked wood before she can light anything on fire. “Y’know,” Ruby drawls on, not seemingly perturbed at all, “you’re pretty well-built for an egghead. Anyone ever told you that?”

Sam knows he’s gone before she even finishes her line. Something about the blunt edges of her demeanor drawing him in like nothing else, though he refuses to dwell on why. Sam slowly leans forward until he’s caging her in, resting his hands on the arms of the sofa and boring his own gaze into the dark pools of her sloe eyes. A flicker of memory overlays the moment, but he quickly puts the kibosh on any nostalgia before it can take over. “How about we stop talking for a while?” he suggests, low and indecent, and she grins back at him like a crocodile.

Amelia can wait another hour.

  

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Sam’s suit is mostly in place and semi-decent before he steps back out into the club proper, leaving Ruby behind to put herself together.

Billie’s still singing the blues to the rafters, ever the consummate professional, but her voice warbles clear and strong over a dead room. Sam can make out five or six silhouettes cast stark by the faint stage lighting, but the spread of empty tables looms larger. A turn-out like this would be pitiful on a Tuesday, much less a Saturday night, but Singer’s hasn’t ever been the most hopping joint in town. Sam stopped hoping for miracles years ago.

He steps up behind the bar, taking over from absolutely nobody, and tries not to feel too sour over the fact that he probably wasn’t even missed. It’s the end of the night though, and he’s only got a little more time to while away before he can hit the bricks. Sam ducks under the counter and starts throwing together an Old Fashioned—for himself probably, if he knows his guilt response—when a tread of heavy footsteps make their way up to the bar.

“Well look at you, all respectable,” a man says deeply. “Never thought I’d see the day”

Sam’s heart leaps into his throat at the sound of that voice. More familiar to him than smoke and rain. He’d never be able to forget it in a hundred years. Nor a hundred after that. Not as long as he lives. “Mr. Campbell,” he breathes, half in shock.

“Mr. Singer,” he’s greeted in equal exchange as he slowly rises to his feet.

Dean Campbell stands steady and sure at the end of the bar, one hand casual in his pocket and a half-cocked smirk playing at his full lips. He hasn’t changed a day since Sam’s seen him last. Eyes glinting knowingly above his hatchet-sharp jawline. Wide-brimmed hat perched just so. Even the roguish five o’clock shadow he keeps meticulously maintained, despite the irony. _Dean Campbell_. Shining so bright through the gray of the world that Sam barely even notices the rumpled suit. Though it’s not like his suits are _ever_ pressed. They’re always wrinkled and creased at the sleeves and usually spattered with who-knows-how-many different men’s lifeblood if he hasn’t cleaned it recently. The pitch-dark fabric hides most of the stains, but under the right light the blood stands out…if you know where to look. Sam’s seen it enough. Hell, Campbell should probably come across like a terrifying, murderous vagrant in that getup. He doesn’t though.

He looks like a goddamned angel.

It helps that he’s the most handsome man that Sam’s ever laid eyes on—that _anyone’s_ ever laid eyes on, really. Campbell could be in the pictures if he wanted, easily. He’d just never want it.

Campbell rolls his shoulders under his coat and grins like a movie star. “ _Singer’s_ ,” he chuckles, gesturing up at the neon sign behind Sam’s head. “That’s cute.”

It takes Sam a solid few seconds before he can speak again, struck dumb by his unexpected visitor. “Gotta pull in the etymological aficionados somehow,” is what he eventually goes with. He fills and slides two shots over the counter without even having to be asked and Campbell downs them both with a grateful smile, easy as breathing.

“Damn,” he says, gravel-soft even without the alcohol. “Those are some five-dollar words right there, Sammy. How’s a guy like you earn enough scratch to afford words like those?”

“Haven’t you heard?” Sam asks sarcastically, arms wide to indicate the mostly empty room. “Business is booming.”

Campbell leans back to take in the unimpressive ambiance for a quiet second, listening for crickets maybe. “If this is booming, I hate to see slow.”

“Maybe I just skim a few syllables from the till here and there.”

“Well, you _do_ need those nice, fancy words, after all.”

Sam snorts under his breath, self-effacingly. “What else have I got?” he jokes, falling into the familiar groove and not meaning much by it.

But suddenly, the mood shifts serious as Campbell just looks at him. “You’ve got everything you ever wanted, Sam,” he says simply, devastatingly sincere. Like they’re the only two people in the room. Like they’re the only two people in the whole _city_. Campbell holds his gaze for a brief slice of forever before finally breaking the spell, pulling a pack of Lucky Strikes from his suit jacket and flicking the top open. He taps a single out, then holds up the rest in invitation. “Cigarette?” he offers, placing one between his own lips.

Sam shakes his head, off-kilter in a palpable way. “I’m good.”

Campbell pauses, like he wasn’t quite expecting that answer, then puts the pack away again. The cigarette dangles enticingly from his lips, but he doesn’t light it. “So what’s with the Rick Blaine act?” he mumbles around the stick in his mouth.

“What’s with the Sam Spade act?” Sam counters without missing a beat. “You still chasing down petty ne’er-do-wells?”

“What else have I got?” Campbell asks easily, and the echo of Sam’s own words isn’t lost on him.

Billie starts up another crooner, singing low and long about lost love, and Sam clears his throat to dispel the cobwebs. “So,” he says, tearing his eyes away from the shifting tension of the other man’s throat, “what brings you to the East Coast?”

Campbell makes to replace his unused cigarette to its pack, then seems to think better of it, shoving the deck of Luckies back in his breast pocket again and returning the smoke to his mouth, still unlit. “Looking for something.”

“A lead?”

“Answers.”

Sam’s stomach settles somewhere around his ankles. “For a case?”

Campbell glances up beneath the brim of his hat, holding his gaze captive without even trying. “More or less.”

The click of approaching heels snaps Sam out of the moment, and he’s got just enough time to swivel around to see Ruby slink up against his side and slip her hand possessively over his shoulder, a little too familiar for bridge with the neighbors. Sam notes Campbell noting the gesture immediately and nervously fumbles for a believable explanation. “Uh, this is—”

“This must be Amelia,” Campbell interrupts him smoothly, and Sam doesn’t have a clue _how_ the other man found out about his current romantic situation, but he doesn’t dare to correct him at the moment.

“Yes,” he blurts out immediately. “This is Amelia Richardson, my fiancée.” He tosses Ruby a subtly pleading glance, eyes wide as he can make them, and thankfully she catches on quick. “ _Baby_ , this is Dean Campbell,” he says stiffly.

“Charmed, I’m sure,” Ruby covers for him, extending her fingers out for an elegant handshake.

Campbell discreetly slips the cigarette from his lips and reaches out with his other hand to enclose Ruby’s smaller palm in his own. “Ma’am, I think you might be out of my friend’s league.” He lets out a wolfish whistle and gives her his most charming eyebrow waggle. Or, at least, what he _thinks_ is his most charming eyebrow waggle. “I mean, look at the gams on you.”

“I’m…flattered,” she replies dryly, sounding anything but.

And Sam has to clear his throat to break the building tension before anything escalates. “Mr. Campbell’s here from Los Angeles,” he directs to Ruby, hoping it’ll change the subject. “For work.”

“Oh, is that so?”

Campbell spreads his hands with a casual _you got me_ look. “So many monsters on the streets nowadays, I guess they can’t keep ‘em contained to either coast.”

She glances down at the empty shot glasses still in front of him. “Well maybe it’ll be easier to catch them if you go a little lighter on the libations.”

“I might have six slugs in me, dollface,” he admits readily, looking absolutely tickled pink, “but I promise only five of ‘em are liquor.”

Ruby narrows her eyes at the nickname and Sam scrambles for a fix. “ _So_ ,” he interrupts pointedly, before Campbell can realize that some of the barbs being thrown his way aren’t exactly friendly, “what brings you to Singer’s?”

He tilts his head back toward the sparsely populated dance floor and his hat tips rakishly over his eyes at the motion. Probably on purpose, if Sam were to guess. “I’m here with my friend Starla,” he says.

A quick scan of the room reveals one or two available women, but the overly loud bottle-blonde with the grating laugh is the only one he could possibly be talking about. Sam doesn’t even try to constrain himself. “Your _friend_ , huh?”

“New friend,” Campbell concedes with a bawdy wink, “but very close.”

“You got a lot of friends, Mr. Campbell?” Ruby asks, not even trying to sound innocent about it.

“Well, what can I say?” he tosses back with a measured grin, not offended in the slightest. “I’m a popular fella.” Campbell sinks his teeth into his bottom lip, probably realizing he’s spent far too much time neglecting his date already, and telegraphs his departure with a short sigh. “Well,” he says definitively. “Evening, Mr. Singer.” He tips his hat to Sam, then to Ruby in turn. “Ms. Richardson.”

“You have a good night, Mr. Campbell.”

“Oh, I _will_ , Sammy,” he says, cutting a lascivious glance to his companion’s backside. “I will.” And then he’s slicing across the floor like a shark through dark water, gluing himself to his date’s back and happily joining in the obnoxious laughter.

“So, who’s the dick?” Ruby asks from his shoulder. Campbell’s made no secret of the fact that he’s a detective, so the word choice could be an innocent coincidence, but when Sam glances over, the look in her eyes says she did it intentionally.

“Buddy,” he says simply. Trying not to stare too obviously as Campbell and his friend slip through his doors and back out into the cold night. “From the _war_.” 

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Campbell is back two nights later, sitting smack dab center at the bar as Sam steps out from the backroom, taking a break from checking over inventory. The place is so dead tonight he’d even given Billie the evening off, but there the man is, Sam’s sole customer, nursing three fingers of the hard stuff and sporadically dripping onto his expensive wooden counter.

“You got a couple of black-and-whites circling outside,” Campbell says, not even glancing up from the whiskey he’s got in front of him. One Sam didn’t _pour_ , mind you. Which means he probably helped himself.

“They like to patrol this block. It’s close to the waterfront.” Sam runs his eyes over the shallow coaster his guest has jury-rigged into an ashtray with a flicker of annoyance. “There’s no smoking in here.”

“It’s a nightclub, Sam.”

“Still.”

“What,” he asks, gesturing around at the empty tables behind him, “you afraid I’m gonna disturb the other patrons?” He reaches into his breast pocket to shift the rest of the carton into sight. “You want one?”

“There’s no smoking in here.”

Campbell expertly ignores him, tapping the pack back down and continuing to puff away like Sam hadn’t ever said a word to him. “I ran into Yellow Eyes today.”

Sam frowns a little at the unexpected change of subject. “The gangster?” he asks skeptically, trying to place the nickname. Sam reads the morning papers and all, considers himself fairly up on things, but he still shudders to imagine what sort of work’s got a P.I. like Campbell caught up in mob business.

“The one and only.”

“Where’s he now?”

Campbell smirks to himself a little, like he’s the only one in on the joke. “Bottom of Dead Man’s Curve.”

“Vacationing?” Sam suggests sarcastically.

“You could say that.” He blows twin, thin trails of smoke through his nose, like a storybook dragon. “You could also say he wasn’t a fan of getting his brakes tuned-up.”

Sam tries to let the moment lie, tries to force himself back to cataloguing his ice and his olives, but the spark of curiosity wins out. “Murder or suicide?” he asks after a scant moment.

He can practically _hear_ the smile in Campbell’s voice at his capitulation. “S’what I’m trying to figure out, kid.”

The old and well-loved nickname settles low in Sam’s gut and spreads a warmth right through him that offsets the miserable weather outside. Like a St. Bernard traipsing through the snow, barrel around its neck just for him.

“What about ‘Azazel’?” Campbell asks after a moment, annoyingly unaware of the effect he’s having on him. “That name mean anything to you?”

Sam clears his throat and pulls himself together again. “Not really. Should it?”

“Nah, not as far as I know. We just keep seeing it popping up all over the damn place.”

“We?” Sam asks stiffly, trying to sound for all the world like he’s just curious.

Campbell hesitates for a moment, like he might actually come clean, but then he just hunches forward on his stool with a low huff. “Nobody, Sammy. Don’t worry about it.”

Deflection and silence and more deflection. _That_ , Sam hadn’t missed. “Y’know,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest and leveling Campbell with a flat look, “there’s gotta be better people to talk to for help with your case. I’m not exactly in the know or anything.”

“Yeah,” Campbell says playfully, that incorrigible twinkle in his eye, “but you’ve got booze.”

“You trying to get soused?

His eyebrows jump up his forehead as he theatrically places a hand over his heart. “I’m offended that you think I can’t hold my liquor.”

Sam stifles an amused scoff. It’s a laugh, as much as he doesn’t want to admit it. “Well,” he says sinking down to his elbows on the counter, “if you absolutely _insist_ on coming to me about your work, I suppose the polite thing to do would be to ask you what you’re thinking.”

“Who says I’m thinking anything yet?” Campbell mutters teasingly. But Sam just smiles patiently and waits. It doesn’t take long. “Alright,” he finally relents. “I already know the motive.”

“Really?” Sam blinks in surprise. “That’s kinda impressive.”

“Yeah, not so much,” Campbell gripes, boredom shading his tone. “A case like this, there’s only one possible motive. It’s about the greenbacks, Sammy,” he says with an overdramatic sigh. “It always is. Forever and in perpetuity.”

“What about love?”

Campbell just raises a silent, incredulous eyebrow at him.

“I mean, _women_ ,” Sam clarifies, flushing a little under the man’s stare as he awkwardly shuffles back up to standing. “Y’know, jealousy and the like.” Sam clears his throat and turns back around to focus on adjusting some bottles on the top shelf that clearly don’t need adjusting. Campbell huffs out a mocking breath from behind him, and Sam glances down to catch him rubbing a thumb over his bottom lip in the backsplash mirror. Like he’s physically trying to rein in his smile. “And what about revenge?” Sam points out, ornery about being laughed at. “Seems like that’d be a fairly popular one too.”

That shuts Campbell up but good, his mouth snapping closed with a muted click of his teeth. “Alright, so there’s three motives,” he admits sourly, shifting around on his stool a little. “Shut up.”

Sam smiles to himself at the minor victory, continuing the faux reorganization of his liquor…and if Campbell can see his reflection in the mirror too, he doesn’t say a word.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Amelia is far too good a cook for how little she’s at home, Sam thinks, delicately poking at his Salisbury steak with his fork.

She’s basically got the whole house to herself most of the time, so it stands to reason she’d want to live in it. It’s a cozy little two-bedroom, inherited clean and _in toto_ after her first husband’s passing, but she still insists on spending three days a week bookkeeping for the veterinarian’s office down on 5th Street. Sam supposes he understands wanting to keep yourself busy—hell, he does enough of it himself—but Amelia doesn’t need to, really, what with the house in her name and all. She just…does.

“Is it good?” Amelia asks politely from the other end of the table.

Sam makes sure to scoop a forkful of peas and carrots into his mouth with a broadcasted smile. “It’s wonderful, baby,” he says kindly, and it is. Home-cooked meals were something of a distant legend to Sam before he’d met his fiancée. As in, something he’d known existed, but had never been fortunate enough to experience himself. If he never sees another can of beans his whole life, it’ll be too soon.

Amelia looks content enough at his answer, nodding her head and going back to her own meal.

They sit in silence for a while, soft clinks of metal against ceramic the only sounds as they eat.

“What time are you coming home tonight?” Amelia asks eventually.

Sam hums as he finishes chewing. “Not sure exactly. Depends on the night.” Something shutters down over her eyes at his answer and she goes back to her dinner, stabbing at her meat harder than necessary. Sam pauses at the unnerving display, fork halfway to his mouth. “Amelia, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine, Sam.”

She won’t meet his eyes and his fork is still frozen in the air. “You don’t sound fine.”

Amelia finally relents, letting out a defeated sigh and pushing her soft curls behind an ear. “Why is this all we talk about?” she asks tersely. Sam is speechless at the unexpected question and Amelia takes the opportunity to push further. “Every night I ask you the same thing and you give me the same answer and that’s it. Why don’t we talk?”

“About what?” Sam asks, a little shaken.

She looks up then, her eyes imploring. “Like your family, for instance. You know about Don, but I don’t know practically anything about you.” Amelia pushes her plate away and crosses her arms over the dining table. “What’s your mother like?”

Sam clears his throat awkwardly and sets his silverware down. “Ma died when I was six months old. I didn’t really know her.”

Amelia blanches pale. “Oh, I’m so sorry,” she says nervously. “What about your father then?”

“Went looking for her when I was eight.”

“ _Looking_ for her?” his fiancée asks with trepidation.

Sam lets out a huff of breath, then continues eating again. “Pop had some funny ideas about things. He never came back.”

“Dead, or deadbeat?”

“First one probably.”

Amelia watches him, unflinching. “You don’t seem too cut up about it.”

“It’s been a long time,” he shrugs.

“So you were…on the streets?” she asks eventually. Delicately

“For a bit,” Sam says.

“Then what? A dowager aunt take you in?”

Sam smiles into his glass of milk. “Something like that.”

Amelia turns back to her food as well, apparently sated enough for now. “You never talk about your past,” she says, cutting her meat into tiny pieces. “It’s a little eerie.”

“It isn’t exactly dinner conversation, y’know?”

She sighs again. “You can tell me things, Sam.” Her hand twitches like she wants to place it over his own. She doesn’t. “We’re _supposed_ to tell each other things.”

Sam lets out a quiet breath, just about as guilty as usual. “I will, baby,” he promises. “Anything you want.” He stands up from the table and places his plate in the sink for Amelia to clean later. Grazes a fleeting hand over her shoulder as he passes. “I’ll do better,” he says.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  

There’s an older couple drinking in silence at one of the tables and Billie’s singing a bittersweet melody about the war, the next time Campbell shows up.

“You ever hear of a dame called Lilith?” he asks after he’s burned his third cigarette to the nub. Sam finishes drying the glass in his hands and glances over at the human chimney sitting at his bar. Some of the folks Sam knows only smoke when they drink. Campbell tends to claim this quirk as his own too, which is technically true. The only thing is, he’s _always_ drinking.

“Odd name,” Sam says finally.

“Yeah.”

“Can’t say I have though. Sorry.” He risks a quick glance across the room, making sure their conversation isn’t disturbing the other patrons before continuing. “She involved in the Azul thing?”

“ _Azazel_ ,” Campbell corrects him with a flick of ash. “And yeah, I think she might be. She’s supposed to be some fancy-pants heiress of some kind, but the details ain’t adding up right.”

“What sort of details?”

“Like she’s spending way too much time ringside for a princess like her to reasonably be doing.” Campbell frowns and rolls his neck until it cracks, then once back around the other way. “You know Gunner Lawless?”

“The boxer?” Sam asks, trying not to get whiplash from the barrage of offhand questions.

He nods grudgingly, looking a little disenchanted. “Word on the street is he may be mixed up in some shit that a respectable sportsman wouldn’t be.”

The elderly couple finally get up from their table, leaving a small handful of paper bills behind as they shuffle toward the exit. The husband doesn’t hold the door for his wife.

“Wait, are we talking… _Kosher Nostra_ shit?” Sam asks carefully.

“He wanted a championship belt. Apparently, they made it happen.”

“Yeesh,” Sam lets out on a disheartened breath. “Can’t trust anyone these days, I guess.”

Campbell gives him a heavy look, then flicks his eyes away again, humming in wary agreement. He takes another sip out of the glass in front of him, cheapest whiskey they’ve got, and from the way he dips his hand into his pocket sometimes, fingers running over softly clinking change, it’s the best he can afford. Sam never charges him though. Wouldn’t dream of it. “So,” Campbell says after a long, stilted pause. “Amelia.”

“Yeah. Amelia.”

“She doesn’t remind me of Jess.” He swallows mutedly, momentarily softening the line of his jaw. “Not at all.”

Sam idly flicks through his dulling memories of Ruby and can’t disagree. She’s pretty much everything Jess wasn’t, in all the worst ways. It’s part of why he’d been so attracted to her, he thinks. Though, even if Campbell had met his actual fiancée, he’d still probably be saying the exact same thing. “No,” Sam agrees easily, placing the last clean glass back with its brothers on the rack. “Not at all.”

“You love her?”

“Her first husband died in the war.”

Campbell blinks at the non-sequitur. “You love her?” he asks again, slower.

Sam clears his throat and nods way too hastily. “So,” he says, flipping his dishrag over his shoulder, “what have you got on the whole Yellow Eyes thing?”

Campbell holds his gaze for a suspicious moment, but lets Sam’s fishy response go without pressing. “Bupkis,” he says with a far-too-casual sigh. “I pretty much ran out of gas on that lead. Been trying to approach it all from a new angle. I kinda doubt he was that important anyway.”

“You think he was a patsy?”

“Fellas who call the shots don’t tend to end up at the bottom of cliffs.” Campbell drains the rest of his drink in one go and plunks his empty glass, upside-down, onto the bar with an exaggerated wince. “Why don’t you go home to that girl of yours, Sammy? Get some shut-eye. I’m done for the night anyway.”

“…You sure?” Sam asks quietly, that question and ten thousand more unsaid ones lingering between them in the smoky room.

Campbell stares at him for a long time, unreadable. His eyes cast into shadow from the way he’s tilted his head. Then he finally grabs his hat from the stool next to him and gradually gets to his feet. “Yeah,” he says. A drifting ghost just passing through. “I’m sure.”

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Campbell’s office is a little more disappointing than Sam had thought it would be. Not that he’s in _any_ position to judge another man’s livelihood, given how things are going at Singer’s. But his office in Los Angeles had had character. It was a little, hole-in-the-wall dive, sure, but it _said_ something to the world. It was tough and entrenched and sturdy. It promised results. You took one look at that office and you knew the man inside could help you with your problems. That he wouldn’t rest until you were satisfied, like a dog with a bone in its jaws.

This new office has got character too, Sam supposes…it just says something very different. Honestly, it’s not a terrible place to set up a shingle, all things being told. It’s on a street busy enough for foot traffic and easy to find if you’re specifically looking for it, but the place looks sad more than anything else. Drippy and small and cold.

Although, that could be the weather.

It’s not much better on the inside either, a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and illuminating the dingy space with a faded, weak-coffee kind of light. There’s a man sitting on the same side of Campbell’s shabby desk when Sam walks in, the two of them clearly locked in thoughtful conversation, and he almost regrets intruding after the place is clearly closed for the night. The stranger looks up at the tinny bell that announces his entrance and his eyes immediately go squinty in calculation, emotionless as stone. He’s a cop if Sam’s ever seen one. And he must also be the _“we”_ Campbell briefly mentioned before.

Campbell though couldn’t be more the opposite if he tried, indolently leaning back in his desk chair with his arms crossed behind his head. “Mr. Singer,” he crows the second he spots him, laidback and easy. “To what do we owe this pleasant surprise?”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

Campbell unfolds himself from where he’d been sitting like a pretzel, casually smacking the back of his hand against the copper’s knee. “Cas, meet Sam Singer.” He tilts his head back toward the cold man, like they’re all old friends. “Sam, Cas Novak. He’s helping me with the Azazel case.”

Novak gets out of his seat with nary a word, giving Sam a polite nod of his head, and then he’s out the door into the rain, like someone had asked him to leave.

Sam frowns in confusion, trying not to stumble over the awkwardness the man had left in his wake, but Campbell doesn’t seem to be unsettled at the strange behavior. “I, uh, didn’t see your hotrod out front,” Sam says, idly wondering if the ice even needs breaking at this point. If it ever does with them.

Campbell grins and loosens his tie a little more. He’s already down to just his shirt, his jacket flung over back of his chair and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. But his hat is still perched precariously on his head and his collar is so loose Sam can see the top of his chest, the valley of smooth, sculpted skin carelessly disappearing beneath his third button. Which means Sam has to forcefully tear his gaze away before he does something stupid like point it out. “Baby’s parked in back,” Campbell says with a hint of pride in his voice, like maybe he’d caught Sam looking. Or maybe he’s just goo-goo over his dumb car. “Some street hooligans kept looking at her a little _too_ admiringly, if you know what I mean.”

Sam steps a little further into the room, trying not to feel like the stranger here. “So, who’s the flatfoot?”

“ _Ex_ -flatfoot,” Campbell corrects him reflexively. He sniffs a little, then finally gets up from his chair, wiping his hands on his slacks. “Cas used to work for the local PD until they tossed him out on his ass. Apparently, leading a charge against corruption gets you drummed out pretty damn quick these days.”

“Guess there’s no point in setting rattraps when they’re the ones running the show.” Campbell hums in accord. “So, he your partner in all…this?” Sam vaguely gestures around the office.

“Eh,” he says with a wiggle of his hand. “Sidekick, more like. He’s a good kid.”

“Kid?” Sam chuckles. “He’s older than you.”

Campbell cracks a smile and twirls a dramatic finger at his head. “Yeah, but his brains are all squirrely.” He leans a casual hip against his desk, looking for all the world like there’s no place he’d rather be. But he can do that in any situation. It’s one of his more annoying talents. “He’s good at tracking down a lead though,” Campbell continues, thumbing at his nose. “Plus he _looks_ the part.”

“Ninety percent of the job?”

He lets out a laugh, flash of white teeth under the overhead light. “Yeah, something like that.” He holds Sam’s gaze for an amicable beat, then he slips a hand into his pocket and strolls around his desk to pull out the top drawer, sorting through the contents inside. “You want a smoke?”

“No thanks,” Sam says distractedly, taking advantage of the moment to let his eyes wander over the rest of the man’s office. There’s nothing on the walls.

Campbell purses his lips a little. In reflection, not disappointment. “You want a drink then?”

Sam pauses, his tongue darting out to wet his own lips, then he clears his throat so his voice can’t give him away. “Yeah.”

Campbell goes back to his desk drawer with a curtailed smirk, pulling out a bottle of cheap rotgut and inviting Sam closer with a playful jerk of his head. He can’t help but obey.

Sam takes his hat off and tosses it onto the wood, running a hand over his hair and accepting the glass the other man pours for him. He takes an automatic whiff of the amber liquid, old habits and all that, but immediately regrets it when he gets a nose full of gasoline fumes. Campbell won’t ever let him live it down if he doesn’t finish it though, so he grits his teeth and takes a swig. Doesn’t show a hint of weakness on his face. Campbell still chuckles a little, deep in his throat, and Sam takes a silent moment to bemoan the fact that he can never win.

“So, what are these?” he asks nonchalantly, trying to steer the attention away from himself for a moment. There are two passports laying on Campbell’s desk, crisp and official-looking, but when Sam flips one open in mild curiosity, there isn’t any picture inside. There’s a name though. _Geiger_. He glances up in confusion, then checks inside the other one. Same deal, only this one says _Lundgren_.

Campbell grants him a reassuring look. “Clients of mine,” he explains loosely. “Some guy came in the other day asking about some American IDs for him and his buddy. Said he was a tradesman.” He takes a sip from his glass, cool as can be. “Figured there wasn’t any point to argue with guaranteed money. Plus, it’s in my wheelhouse.”

Sam relaxes at the explanation. “You have always been good at that,” he admits fondly. “You sure they’re not spooks?”

Campbell smiles softly to himself. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Easy job, then.”

“Pennies from Heaven.”

Sam swirls his drink around in his glass, trying to somehow mellow the corrosive liquid out a little before taking another sip. “What’s he trade in?”

“ _Sensitive_ materials,” Campbell replies, enjoying himself way too much. “You in the market for a Chinese chair? He can hook you up.”

Sam chokes on his drink, a dribble of ethanol burning its way down his chin before he can catch it. Campbell looks like he’s about to crack up again, so Sam rolls his eyes at the asshole and redirects his attention as best he can.

“So you, uh, still into this? All this?” he clarifies clumsily. “The whole gumshoe thing?”

“It pays the bills,” Campbell says with a shrug. Of course, the bulb chooses that exact moment to sputter out and he has to tap it with his fingernail a couple times to get it to flicker back on. “For the most part,” he adds grudgingly.

“Ever think about hanging it up?” Sam asks, sitting back on Campbell’s desk himself.

Campbell smiles at the action, walking around the table to settle at Sam’s side. “Well, there’s always grifting to fall back on if this whole ‘right side of the law’ thing doesn’t pan out,” he says, both of them shoulder-to-shoulder as they take in the rest of the room.

“You think you could slip back into it, easy as that?”

Campbell lets out a derisive snort. “ _Please_ , like you couldn’t pull a perfect Good Samaritan with your eyes closed.”

Sam leans into the other man’s arm, playfully trying to push him off the desk. “That con’s only worth it if you’re not the one being _tackled_.”

“We usually got a payout,” he laughs, feet braced solidly on the thin carpet against Sam’s mild assault. His eyes are crinkling at the corners, deep, intimate lines of joy that Sam can’t look away from.

“Yeah,” he says in grudging amusement. “ _Usually_.” Sam settles back with a contented sigh and takes another sip of his airplane fuel. “So how’s your case going?”

He can feel Campbell shrug next to him. “Some ups,” he says genially, “mostly downs.” He drains his glass, then reaches back for the bottle so he can pour another. Sam tries not to stare at his forearms. “Gunner’s popped off the map without a trace. But my source says he racked up a fair amount of gambling debt in the interim and got in deep with the Irish.”

“Which Irish?”

“Fergus ‘Crowley’ MacLeod.”

Sam lets out a low whistle at the name. Crowley’s bad news in a big way. He almost can’t believe Lawless got mixed up with a thug like that, dirty or not. “The Irish don’t control the prizefights though,” he says over the rim of his glass.

Campbell goes still at the statement, smile flirting at the corners of his plush mouth. “No they do not,” he says, clearly taken aback and a little impressed. “Which means that more than one family’s involved. Which means I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a couple more red points turn up the next few days.”

“Red points?”

“Yeah, y’know, like wartime rations,” he explains off-handedly. “Red points for meat.” Then he has to pause disbelievingly at Sam’s still-questioning stare. “ _Corpses_ , Sammy. Jeez.”

“Oh.”

An easy moment of silence follows, Sam trying not to say anything embarrassing as he nurses his drink and lets Campbell’s familiar scent and feel surround him. Like they’ve both slipped right back into the past. Campbell leans into him a little further too, both of them resting against each other, shoulder to thigh. A touchstone of true warmth in the void that has become Sam’s life. Like the eye of a terrible storm, but somehow the quiet is worse than the winds.

“So where you staying?” Sam asks after a minute. Soft and hushed.

Campbell sweeps his hand out with a incongruously jaunty grin. “You’re looking at it.”

“Seriously?” he asks hesitantly. “You’re sleeping _here?_ Instead of a hotel or something?”

Campbell scoffs under his breath, but it isn’t a mean sound. “What’s the point?” he asks, rhetorical, then he tips his head back and kills his second glass. “You telling me you don’t still have nightmares?”

Sam chews at the inside of his cheek. “I don’t really sleep.”

He tenses up then. Clenches his jaw and stares Sam right in the eye. “You used to,” he says. And it means something. It means everything.

“C’mon, Campbell,” Sam says weakly, trying to steer away from any more heaviness tonight.

But Campbell just freezes when he hears the appellation out loud, going rigid beside him and giving Sam a narrow-eyed look like he can’t quite figure him out. Brow furrowed and lips tight at the corners. “Why are you here, Sam?” he asks finally.

And Sam feels the firewater start to go sour in his gut. He doesn’t have an answer for that. He didn’t think he’d be asked. “I should get going,” he says hesitantly, placing his still half-full glass onto the scuffed desk. He can’t meet the other man’s eyes suddenly, his gaze sliding down to rest at his feet the whole way out. Sam even gets all the way to the door before he belatedly realizes that he’s left his hat behind and has to go back and grab it.

Campbell doesn’t say a word throughout his entire awkward exit.

  

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Sam rubs a hand over the back of his neck and wills himself to stay awake a little longer. It’s already half past three in the morning, but he has no intention of heading out yet. He’d sent everyone else home a while ago, Billie and the band snug and cozy in their beds by now, but here he still is. Running over the numbers in his shirtsleeves and not thinking about why.

A slight noise skitters out from the main floor, the walls too thin to hide anything, and Sam groans at the interruption. Probably some kid taking advantage of the fact that the lights are off to break in and try and swipe a bottle or two. But Sam’s chicken scratch is starting to blur in front of his eyes anyway, so he plants his hands flat on his desk and gets to standing, shoving aside his books and assorted bar sundries as he makes his way to the front room.

Campbell’s waiting for him when he gets there. Sam would recognize the powerful lines of his body blindfolded. Every graceful, dangerous edge of him. And he’d need to, right now, because the man’s face is completely obscured by shadow. Arms crossed over his chest, legs crossed at the ankle, bare-headed and leaning back against the far wall in such an exact, careful placement that his features can’t be seen. It’s clear this isn’t a social call.

“Smoke?” Campbell offers lowly— _Dean_ offers lowly. It’s late. It’s late and Sam’s tired and he’s _tired_. And it’s not like anyone’s around to notice anyway. Either of them could unload an entire round into the walls and no one would hear. Or care enough to call it in. The least Sam can do is drop the act, even if it’s just in his own head.

“I quit,” he says finally. “Couple of years back.”

Dean nods to himself, bitter. Black stripe of shadow just barely bobbing as he moves his neck. “Good for you,” he says. He doesn’t mean it. “I had a new client come in today.”

“Good for you,” Sam tosses right back, just as sincere.

“Pretty,” Dean continues on as if he hadn’t been interrupted. “Slip of a thing, really, but she looked like she could hold her own in a room of twenty. I wouldn’t put money down against her is what I’m saying.” He shifts against the wall, darkness cutting sharp over his jaw and revealing just a slice of his chin to Sam’s eyes. “So she comes into my office, right?” he says, his voice austere. “Sits down across from me and says, ‘I think my man’s done me wrong.’ She says, ‘He works late, but I’m thinking he works _too_ late.’ Catch my drift?” Dean finally lights his own cigarette, brief spark of flame illuminating the whites of his eyes before he flickers into the shadows again. Damnably unreadable. “So she asks me to tail him—fairly standard, really. I get the cliché husband or wife walking through my door eight times outta ten.” He pauses to pull in a drag. Exhales slow and exaggerated. “But she tells me, ‘No, he’s not my husband, mister. He’s my fiancé.’ And I say, ‘Fine,’ and ask her name.” The bright spark of his ember lights up as he inhales again, only thing Sam can see clearly through the dark. “And you know what she tells me, Sammy?”

“Her name?” Sam guesses dryly.

Dean doesn’t move an inch, his outline as still and dark as a statue carved from ebony. “She says her name’s Amelia Richardson.” Sam feels the breath leave his lungs without his permission. A band of iron tightening around his chest as he waits for Dean to continue. There’s a long pause before he does. “And I think, _no_ ,” he says eventually, tense and clipped, “this couldn’t possibly be Amelia Richardson because I’ve _met_ Ms. Amelia Richardson. And Ms. Richardson don’t wear her hair like that, and Ms. Richardson certainly don’t dress like that, ‘cause I’ve _met_ Ms. Richardson, you see?” Dean pauses pointedly and Sam can feel his eyes on him even if he can’t see them. “And so I ask her what this philandering louse of hers is called,” he continues slowly, “and she says, ‘Singer.’ _Sam_ _Singer_. Owns a club down Lebanon Way. She says I can’t miss it. The sign’s a big joke.” Dean finally steps into the room proper, shadows slipping from his face like water until Sam can make out every feature in the dim moonlight. Furious and cold. “Who was the broad?”

Sam doesn’t lie. Doesn’t even consider it. Dean deserves better than that. “Her name’s Ruby.”

“That sounds real,” he scoffs under his breath. “Last name?”

“That’s all she gave me.”

Dean’s eyes narrow even further. “Oh, so you two were _real_ close then.”

“Dean—”

“Save it,” he snipes.

Sam lets out a short huff, stepping forward as Dean turns to leave, pleading at the unforgiving breadth of his back. “Dean, would you please just listen to me?”

He obligingly whirls around again, the flames of Hell flashing in his eyes, and Sam almost regrets asking. “I left you alone, Sam,” he snarls, gesturing with the cigarette he’s holding. The smoke trailing from between his fingers making it look like his hand’s on fire. “I gave you exactly what you wanted. What you _begged_ for. I said to myself, ‘Hey, as long as the kid’s happy.’ Right? As long as he’s got his girl, and he’s got his _normal_ , it’s all worth it.”

“Dean, please.”

“If I’m holed up in a damp office, three thousand miles away or in the same fucking _city_ , slowly dying of liver poisoning and a broken heart,” he spits like acid, tapping his fingers hard against his chest for emphasis, “it’s worth it because Sam’s got what he wants and that’s all that matters. But _now?”_ Dean lets out a terrifying excuse for a laugh, not a speck of humor in it. Sam would hesitate to even call it one. “Now you throw it all away on some skirt? You choose Amelia over m—“ he cuts himself off sharply, jaw clenching and releasing in little twitches as he rewords, “over _everything_ , and you can’t even stick to her long enough to grow moss?”

Sam slams his fist down on the nearest table, the _bang_ crashing like a gunshot across the room. “What do you expect me to say?” he finally snaps. His voice mangled, like it’s just been waiting for the right moment to break. “You want me to say I’m not happy with Amelia? Of _course_ I’m not! I haven’t been happy in years, Dean! How could I be?” He tries to take in a breath, but Singer’s is already spinning fuzzily around him and the dark isn’t helping. “You want to know what I really want?” he hisses roughly. “You already _know_ what I really want!”

“I’m trying to give it to you!” Dean shouts right back.

Sam lets out a caustic scoff. “Are you insane?” he says. “What are we gonna do? Get some _new_ names? Move in together and pretend we’re bachelor brothers? Hope no one looks too close?”

“We could do that.”

“Oh, yeah,” Sam says snidely through his teeth. “ _Brothers_. That’s a whip-smart idea there, Dean. That wouldn’t be suspicious at _all_.”

Dean drops his smoke to Sam’s clean floor and grinds it out with the heel of his shoe. Petulant. “So fine,” he says tightly, “we keep ‘Singer’ and ‘Campbell’ and get a shitty little house in the country. You think I can’t learn how to plow a field?”

Sam keeps his expression unyielding, even if the mere suggestion of that life lights something up inside him he’d long thought dead. “They aren’t any friendlier to queers in the boondocks,” he says realistically. “You gonna introduce me to the neighbors as your ranch hand? You think that’ll fool them for longer than a year or two?”

Dean holds his gaze for another livid minute, then gradually gives up, dropping his head low. Finally exhausted. “At least it’s something, Sam.”

“I can’t live like that.”

“You can’t live like _this_ ,” he says in terse response. And he’s offensively right about it too. “Clearly,” he adds with a healthy dose of spite. Dean looks at him for a long time. Long enough to see right through him. “What do you really want?” he asks frankly.

Sam opens his mouth to say the exact same thing he did four years ago, an aborted gesture he thinks better of halfway through, then, surprisingly, lets the lie go without repeating a word of it. Lets it fly up and disappear forever, lost among the dust motes of his empty nightclub. “Don’t play dumb,” he says quietly. “You _know_ what I want. Same thing I’ve always wanted my whole life.”

Dean stalks up close, too close, emboldened by his honesty. “Say it.”

“I can’t.”

A scrape of coarse stubble pricks against the bend in his neck. Whisper of a calloused palm up his back. “Yes, you can.”

“I’m engaged.”

“ _Are_ you?” Dean asks unflinchingly. And Sam can’t even say for sure, not anymore. “What do you want, Sam?” he whispers, sinful lips grazing softly along the shell of his ear.

And Sam doesn’t last a minute more. “My brother,” he says weakly.

Dean’s on him faster than Sam can beg for it. Arms wrenched tight and unforgiving across his shoulders and hands tugging roughly at the back of his head as he mercilessly drags Sam down to his level. And Sam goes so willingly he could cry. Dean tastes like cigarettes and rye liquor and warm arms around him during a thunderstorm, watching the rain slowly melt the edges of their makeshift newspaper shelter. Like the last Peanut Butter Bar even though they’re both still starving, his brother pretending to be so full he couldn’t possibly have another bite just so Sam would take it. Like a fourteen-year-old hand, stronger and realer than any of the heroes in his books, reaching out from the opposite cot at Bobby’s so that they’d never have to fall asleep alone.

Dean growls against his skin, a gnarl of raw emotion he’s unable to tame, lost in the same riptide of memory Sam is; and then they’re both stumbling back toward the bar itself, Sam barely avoiding tripping over chairs and Dean barely avoiding tripping over him. They don’t come up for breath until Sam’s back hits wood.

Sam lets out a hissing sound at the sharp pain in his spine, one that will leave an impressive bruise, he’s sure. Only, he wants it. Wants Dean to mark him up nice and permanent. Wants to do the same to his brother. He wants it more than anything. He grabs Dean’s hand and yanks it around to clutch at his ass, curling his fingers in and pressing down hard so that he’ll follow his lead. And Dean does give in for a gloriously mindless second, broad palms catching over his nice slacks as he slams them together at the hips. He yanks Sam’s shirt free from his pants, bucking up against him like a rodeo bull before he can think better of it. Sam lets out a helpless breath into his brother’s mouth at the motion, all revved-up and animal-stupid, but it isn’t enough to maintain the gradually slowing momentum on Dean’s end now that he’s starting to get ahold of himself. He tries harder, slipping Dean’s hand past his waistband and into his trousers proper, skin on skin, urging him closer and closer to the secret heat of him.

But Dean eventually goes stiff as a corpse in his arms, almost pulling back entirely. “No,” he whispers, his voice like the rough scrape of a match being lit in the dark. “No, not like this.”

And for one miserable, heart-stopping moment, Sam thinks that this is it. That he’s finally gone too far and Dean is gonna walk out his door forever. But when he pulls back in desperation, willing to plead or beg or flay his dignity to the bone in order to get his brother to stay… _rejection_ isn’t what he sees in his eyes.

“Oh, thank God,” Sam lets out on a wavering sigh of relief. “Okay. Yeah, okay.” He surges back down to capture his brother’s mouth with his own, giddy and buoyant. Sam’s willing to do anything Dean wants. Plus, it’s not like it’s the first time.

He flips his brother around in one easy move and jams Dean against the wooden edge of the bar, ignoring his slight _“oof”_ of discomfort as Sam impatiently sets to stripping him down, quick as he can. Dean helps a little, but it’s mostly Sam’s show now, ripping and tugging the shirt from his back. The tie from around his neck. Straight-up _tearing_ at his brother’s suspenders until they come unclipped. He gets him undressed from the waist up, but there’s just too much to touch. Broad swathes of firm skin just begging to be tasted. Glinting pale in the low light like Dean is the only thing that’s real.

Sam dips his head to the nape of his brother’s neck. Scrapes his teeth over the shorn hair at the back of his head, travels down to the knobs of his spine. Dean lets out a hitched breath and Sam latches his mouth fully onto the irresistible junction of shoulder and neck. Smooth, warm skin pulsing alive under his tongue. Salt and soap and memory. Dean jerks under his bite, twitches away from and then _into_ the sharp pain, but Sam doesn’t let go for a second. He slips one hand down into his brother’s trousers, tightly worming his palm between cloth and skin. Dean bucks again once Sam reaches what he’s looking for and it only takes one fingertip stroking over puckered skin for Dean’s entire body to shudder underneath him. Twisting his wrist and barely pressing inside coaxes out a deep groan. Sam lets out a matching sound and drags his forehead back to the base of Dean’s skull. They don’t have anything to ease the way and he knows it’s gonna hurt. He knows even more certain that his brother won’t mind.

“C’mon, already,” Dean bites out impatiently, rocking back to urge him on. “Get a move on, kid.”

The nickname lights Sam up like a switchboard, need surging broad and electric through his veins, so he obliges, shoving a finger into his older brother straight up to the webbing of his palm. He savors the bitten-off breath Dean takes, trying to ease the way as best he can with just his hand. Dean lets him pull away long enough to strip out of his own shirt and wrestle his brother’s pants out of the way, ignoring the hot, pressing ache within his own, but Sam’s plastered back against him in the very next second. Skin on hot, fevered skin.

It’s like he can’t hold Dean tight enough. Can’t get close enough through the years they’d spent apart. His brother is obviously still pissed, the muscles of his back locked up tense underneath Sam’s roaming left hand, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care because at least Dean is _here_. They can work everything out later.

He gets his brother as open as he can with spit and twisting and plain old frustration, both of them far too restless to take the time they really need, and Sam gets his own trousers undone just enough to line his insistent erection up with Dean’s puffy, overheated hole. He can feel his brother’s heartbeat at the tip of his cock and Sam can’t hold back the light gasp that escapes at the thought. Or maybe it’s just his own, blood pounding through his body hard enough for the both of them to feel it. Same thing, really.

Sam manages to barely force himself inside before Dean clenches down hard, seizing up with a gasping sound as his hands scramble over the wood of the bar. “Christ, Sam,” he breathes out hard.

“I don’t think—”

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Dean hisses. “It’s fine. Me too.”

Sam hitches his hips forward, just the tip of him spreading his brother open, but the soft vise gripping him velvet-tight sends waves of pleasure radiating straight to his core. Sweet ache singing a sinuous crescendo up his spine

Dean grunts at the sensation and reaches back to grip a hand around Sam’s hip, a hard brand claiming him more thoroughly than a wedding ring. “C’mon, baby,” his brother whispers _sotto voce_.

And Sam jerks helplessly forward as he comes in an untimely haze of white.

  

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

_The sun shines white over the verdant hills of Wellington, the worst of the glare undercut by the circlets of rough shrubbery enclosing the US encampment. Sam squints into the sunlight and wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. It’s stupid hot for November, and knowing that it’s normal for these parts doesn’t help any. He’s not sure he’ll ever understand how people live on the backside of the world like this._

_“Hey, how would you feel about taking a vacation?” Dean asks from behind him, the gruff bite to his voice somewhat of a permanent fixture since their last campaign. He’s been, in turns, cursing up a violent storm and then ricocheting over to annoyingly attentive faster than lightning and twice as hot. Leaving Sam dizzy under his shifting moods._

_Sam glances around his 360, marking their potential company, and then risks leaning in a little closer. Their shoulders are just barely grazing. It won’t look like anything untoward to peeping eyes. “Sunny New Zealand not doing it for you anymore?” he asks, only partially facetious. Dean had taken to the local color pretty quick, given the rest of their unfortunate circumstances. The pretty girls had helped more than anything._

_His brother doesn’t even crack a smile though. “I ain’t kidding,” he says darkly, then skitters his eyes over their surroundings himself. Furtive and suspicious._

_Sam’s stomach drops like ice and lead. “What?” he asks tensely. “You’ve got some Looney-Tunes scheme cooking in that head of yours, I can see it.”_

_“I’ve just been thinking about traveling,” Dean says casually. Too casual. Terrifyingly casual. “Been thinking about taking a trip out west.” And that’s all he says, biting at a dirty hangnail as he stares off into the distance._

_Sam tries to leave the ominous statement alone, but the possibility of what Dean might do with his silence worries him more than the opposite. “Out west as in America way?”_

_Dean shrugs. But it’s an answer._

_“Dean, don’t be an idiot.” he scolds his brother mildly. “An officer sees us skulking away, we’ll be dead before we hit the ground.”_

_“We’re gonna be dead anyway.”_

_Sam’s teeth click shut, grimly surprised by his brother’s bluntness. “Don’t say that.”_

_“We barely got out of Operation Watchtower still breathing,” Dean snarls under his breath, pissed as a wet cat now. “How much longer you think it’ll take for some Jap with an itchy trigger finger to get lucky?”_

_Sam inhales deeply before responding, trying to appeal to his brother’s sense of reason, futile as he knows it’ll be. “Dean, this war, what we’re doing here, is important,” he says calmly. “Hell, you’re the one who signed us up the first chance you got.”_

_Dean lets out a scoff. “You think I don’t want to beat Tojo’s smug face in myself?” he snits. “Of **course** I do.” He scratches his nubby fingernails over the dirty line of his jaw. “But I overheard Spruance talking with the general—”_

_“I’m pretty sure that’s insubordination, dummy.”_

_Dean ignores the light teasing, his expression as solemn as a funeral march. “This upcoming mission ain’t an honorable one, kid. It’s churning a bunch of cadets into a meat grinder.” He pulls in a tense breath, then spits in the dirt at his feet. “They’re planning on sending a bunch of leathernecks up the beach. First wave.” Dean pauses for a moment, shaken, or maybe it’s just for melodramatic emphasis. “Cannon fodder to protect the important folks behind,” he says quietly. And Sam can’t help but be unsettled by his brother’s revelations on the subject. “I’d die to end this war right now,” Dean continues, hushed, “you know I would. But you’re not gonna get croaked just so some admiral can pin a shiny new medal onto his lapel for capturing another worthless little island.”_

_“That’s not your call.”_

_“Yeah,” Dean says, low and determined. “It really is.”_

_Sam tries to hold firm, but he finds his eyes automatically scoping out the way down to the nearest beach anyway. He isn’t afraid or anything. Not really. Not after all the horror back in Guadalcanal. Hell, given what Dean overheard, they’re probably gonna die either way. He might as well do it with his brother at his side. “So what’s the plan?” he asks eventually, but without an ounce of doubt._

_Dean grins a million-watt grin at his response, eyes glimmering like sea glass, and he’s so fucking beautiful under all the grime. Sam just feels like a bindle stiff. “We sneak down to one of the North Island ports and stow away on a ship bound for Hawaii,” his brother explains, collected in a way which means he must have had it worked out for ages. Maybe the second they got here, even. “We can get back to the mainland from there, easy.”_

_Sam lets out a resigned sigh and nods his head. Maybe if they’re lucky they’ll just starve to death on the boat or something._

_They only get about a mile down the road—or dirt convoy path, as it were—before their perpetual bad luck catches up with them. Sam hears the decisive click of a hammer before his brother does, but Dean’s got his hands in the air the instant he realizes Sam has stopped walking._

_“Out for a midday desertion, Winchesters?” comes the slow burn of a voice from behind them, a thin film of calm layered over a miasma of justified rage._

_Sam recognizes the man even before he turns around, but Groves isn’t any easier of a picture to take in face-to-face. He’s about a decade older than Dean—give or take a few years—or maybe the war just hit him hard, but his age hasn’t stopped him from keeping up with the younger marines one bit. Quite the opposite, actually, considering how quickly his willingness to kiss ass helped him make corporal. He’s a gorilla with a penchant for rules and a jaw square enough to shame a lantern, which is currently clenched in barely-contained fury, but the gun quivering in his outstretched hand hasn’t gone off, which means they’ve still got a chance of getting out of here intact. “You haven’t shot us yet,” Sam says as coolly as he can manage, “so I assume there’s something you want?”_

_“You know what they say about ‘assume’,” Groves lobs back at him, but he doesn’t lower his arm._

_Dean lets out a sickly, defeated chortle. “I dunno, a couple bullets in the back seems more your style, Groves.”_

_Groves clenches his hand around his Browning. “That’s ‘ **Corporal** ’ to you, AWOL scum.”_

_Sam steers the other soldier’s attention back his way before his brother’s hair-trigger temper can get them both plugged. “There something we can do for you, Corporal?” he asks openly._

_Groves takes in a breath through his nose, clearly assuaged a tiny bit by Sam’s deference, but the reprieve only lasts a second or two. “Maybe I just want the glory of dragging you both before the brass myself,” he sneers through his teeth._

_Dean’s eyes narrow into slits. “Yeah, you’d get a nice fat promotion for that, wouldn’t you?” He even goes so far as to lower his hands, actively provoking the armed man now like an idiot with a death wish. “You wanna be sergeant that bad?” he taunts. “Pity you’re not able to earn it through actual combat.”_

_“Dean, shut up,” Sam hisses out the side of his mouth._

_“Plus, our word against yours?” his brother continues, ignoring him. “Pretty sure you’re better off just heading back to camp. Unless you’re banking on the higher-ups not considering you as much of a weasel as I do.” He cocks his head with an infuriating smile. “Risky move.”_

_Groves doesn’t say a word, obviously mulling the situation over, and for a moment Sam thinks his insane brother was **somehow** able to convince the man to let them go, but he tightens his grip on his pistol the very next second. Determined and vindictive. “Good point, Winchester,” he says coldly. “Guess I’m better off shooting you traitors here and now. My word’s gonna look a hell of a lot better against a couple of stiffs.”_

_“Groves, come on,” Sam tries, “we can work something out.”_

_But he swings his arm around to aim square at Sam’s heart, and he’s only got a quarter of a second to throw up a quick prayer before Groves pulls the trigger and Dean leaps between the both of them. The shot goes off with a deafening crack, ripping through the air and jerking his brother’s shoulder clean into Sam’s sternum with the force of it. But Sam’s taller than Dean is, and the angle just saved both their lives._

_Groves tries to squeeze off another shot, but his gun jams on the second try, and he’s got one frantic moment of panic for Sam to make out the whites of his eyes before Dean knocks him out cold with a brutal right hook._

_“Jesus, you asshole, you’re **bleeding** ,” Sam hisses, rushing forward to catch most of his brother’s weight. “What in the hell did you go and do that for?”_

_“He was gonna shoot you, you moron,” Dean says clumsily, woozy from the sudden drop in blood pressure. Or maybe the shock of having a goddamn speeding bullet tear into the meat of his shoulder._

_“Yeah, Dean,” Sam bites out, dry as sand. “I got that part.” He strips off the top half of his uniform and wads it up against his brother’s wound to slow the bleeding, trying not to mark up his own undershirt too obviously. “I meant that **I** could’ve socked Groves. Now why don’t you sit down before you fall down.”_

_“No time, kid,” Dean forces through a painful wince. “Who knows how many men heard that shot. We need to hole up someplace quick. Somewhere safe. We can head down to the beach once we know the coast is clear.”_

_“Gonna get yourself killed, you fucking jerk,” Sam mutters under his breath, but he hefts his brother’s good arm over his shoulder and drags them both out of sight of the main road._

_They find a hollow, dug deep into one of the far hills circling the area, and Sam gets Dean propped up against a scrubby wall before angrily tossing a canteen at his chest and making sure they weren’t followed. Luckily, the cleft’s edges are sharp enough to hide them pretty solidly from most viewpoints in the surrounding terrain and Sam stomps back to his brother with a **sliver** more peace of mind than he had before._

_“This was a stupid idea,” he rants, mostly to himself, as he wriggles down into the remaining space on Dean’s good side. It’s as cramped as a sardine can. And it’s probably hell on his brother’s injury, but Sam’s not feeling too charitable about that at the moment._

_Dean chokes out a strained laugh, sweat beading along his hairline. “You kidding me?” he teases. “This was the best idea we’ve ever had.”_

_“No one looks twice at a French mistake,” Sam recites with a watered-down smile. It’s been their stupid mantra for months now. The reminder cools the majority of his leftover ire and panic, and he twists around as best he can to attend to the bleeding._

_“That’s right, Sammy,” Dean says with a strained sigh. He almost makes an attempt to lean into the ministrations, but flinches at one of Sam’s clumsier touches and jerks away as far as he can. Which isn’t very. “Would you stop fussing?” he snipes irritably. “It’s a clean shot. Small caliber. I’ll be fine.”_

_Sam scowls at the dismissal, but acquiesces to his annoying patient with a stubborn huff. “So what are we gonna do once we make it to Hawaii?” he asks, mostly just trying to get his brother’s mind off the brand-new hole he’s been torn._

_“Get some new names,” Dean answers stiffly. “I can doctor us up a couple of passports and then we’ll be home-free.”_

_“If you say so,” Sam relents too easily. He’s already exhausted and terrified and they haven’t even made it off the island yet. He’s not exactly sure how far they’ll get, but it isn’t good odds. “Hey,” he says, trying not to think about it, “how long you been planning this?”_

_“Long enough.” Dean takes a swig from his canteen, then winces again as the motion twinges his arm. “Been thinking about it since Bobby died, actually.” Sam goes silent at the grim reminder. They’d already been in the South Pacific when they received the awful news. No way to make it back to Sioux Falls, even if they’d been allowed. It’s one of Sam’s bigger regrets. “Figured we could take his name in his memory,” Dean goes on. “The old man would’ve wanted it that way. How does ‘Dean and Sam Singer’ sound to you?”_

_Sam almost agrees just for the sentiment of it all, but their lives are worth more than that. “We can’t be brothers,” he points out, even as it kills him a little inside. “It’ll be too fishy. Army’s gonna be looking for us as a pair. Anyone tips ‘em off, they’ll be heading our way.”_

_Dean makes a dismissive sound, aiming for light, but his voice is too pained for it to read that way. “You worry too much. We lay low for a few months, they’ll forget all about us.”_

_“We’re **deserters** , Dean,” Sam says soberly. “They ain’t never gonna forget.”_

_“Okay,” Dean says. And there’s a gravity in his voice that reads like he already knew that. “Then, uh, what about Mom’s maiden name? You were named after granddad anyhow, it’ll be seamless.”_

_“Yeah, except our names would be identical,” Sam needles in a half-hearted way. “Samuel Campbell? If anyone looks me up, it’ll say I’m sixty years old and died in 1913.”_

_“Alright, fine,” Dean grumbles. “Then **I’ll** be Campbell. You can have Bobby’s name.”_

_Sam smiles a little at the minor victory. Even if his brother let him win, like usual. “Don’t be sour.”_

_“I’m not sour. **You’re** sour.” Dean shifts around again, but even the slightest scrape against the wall at their backs has him gritting his teeth in pain._

_“Now who’s fussing?” Sam asks gently, half-twisting over his brother’s lap until he can place his hand behind his injured shoulder. Should be softer than a rock wall at least._

_Dean lets out a pathetic little sigh and sinks back into his palm. “Grab me a smoke, would ya?” he asks pitifully, jerking his chin down at the pack he keeps in his breast pocket for the both of them. And it’s not like Sam can turn down the guy who just saved his life. Sam fumbles for a cigarette with his off hand, finally plucking one out and temporarily shifting Dean off the rest of his fingers so he can light it. He gets it hot and then offers it up before his brother shakes his head shallowly._

_“Need you to do it,” Dean says. And it’s true. His right hand is busy putting pressure on the blood-soaked wad of Sam’s former shirt and his left has gotta be miles past nerveless right now._

_Sam swallows at the strange intimacy of the idea and nods his head dumbly. He holds the cigarette up to his brother’s mouth, letting Dean’s lips wrap around the paper, grazing the back of Sam’s knuckles and he’s probably tasting his own blood. Dean pulls in a slow drag, eyes fluttering closed in simple pleasure before he gestures Sam closer with a twitch of his head._

_He goes eagerly, softly slanting his own lips over his brother’s and pulling the warm, acrid smoke into his lungs along with Dean’s very breath. Slow and hushed and private. Sam melts into the point of contact and lets his brother breathe for him. Holds the drug inside him until he has to let it out into the negligible space between them._

_“Another,” Dean whispers quietly, his eyes half-lidded as Sam brings the cigarette back to his pillowed lips. His chest rises as he breathes, bringing them unavoidably closer in their confined hideout._

_Sam’s on his brother before he can even cue him this time, in a move that’s much more a kiss than an inhale, letting the smoke drift forgotten out the sides of their mouths as he swallows Dean down. As he tries to forget everything and lose himself in this moment instead._

_They finish the cigarette that way. Shared between them until it’s nothing more than embers._

_Sam flicks the butt to the ground, close enough that no one else will spot it, and carefully lowers his head to press a kiss to the back of his brother’s bloodied right hand. He’s already looking less pale. “Thank you,” he whispers sincerely. And it’s not just about saving his life. It’s about everything._

_Dean reads him loud and clear if the tender smile is anything to go by. “C’mere, you big lug,” he says, and gets him settled against his good shoulder. Even if it’s killing Sam’s back to scrunch down in the narrow space they’ve got._

_“You’ll see, Sammy.” Dean waxes optimistic, staring forward like he can see their whole future mapped out before his eyes. “It’s gonna be blue skies from here on out. All the way.” He relaxes against him, shoulder to shoulder, nothing but pure affection in the gesture. “Trust me.”_

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  

By the time Sam’s lucid enough to stir again, Dean has already stolen one of the glasses from under the bar and has helped himself to the good stuff, sitting naked against the front counter and occasionally taking lazy sips from the tumbler in his hand. Sam doesn’t say a word, silently taking in the gorgeous view for far longer than he should.

“That’s top shelf shit, y’know,” he says eventually.

Dean doesn’t even flinch. He sweeps a deliberate eye over the sprawl of Sam’s body, a self-satisfied smile slowly crawling over his face. “I already paid,” he says, low and smug. “In fact, I’m probably owed a few more of these.”

Sam shifts up to one elbow, then realizes he’s all tangled up in his trousers. He’s still wearing shoes for Christ’s sake. “You’re expensive,” he says distractedly, trying to twist out of his pants.

“Maybe you’ve just got fancy tastes.”

A chuckle escapes from his throat of its own volition. “Nah,” Sam teases. “I definitely don’t got those.” Undressed now, he moves languidly, slinking over his brother’s body until he can straddle his lap, arms wrapped behind Dean’s neck and whiskey firmly pushed out of the way. “Kiss me, you jerk,” he orders softly, dragging his lips over Dean’s jawline until he’ll finally stop being mad at him and give in.

“Don’t be a bitch, Sammy.”

“Kiss me,” he says again, just as quiet. A plea this time.

Dean doesn’t take too long. He brushes forward with a gentle sound, muted clink of glass as the whiskey’s forgotten, and captures Sam’s mouth with his own. Obliging by kissing him stupid and until Sam’s weak in the knees. Soft and wet and perfect. He drops his head onto the solid curve of Dean’s shoulder and lets himself be overwhelmed a little. Lets his brother cage him within his embrace, the thick, heavy arms across his back inimitably familiar. Home sweet home. It’s the first time Sam’s felt safe in four years.

He finally finishes soaking in his brother’s attention, letting his eyes flutter open and lazily dragging his gaze over the man underneath him. Sam’s eyes catch on Dean’s flaccid cock, lying thick and soft against his thigh, and guilt creeps up to stuff his throat. “Shit,” he lets out on a disappointed breath, remembering his less-than-impressive performance earlier. “Did you…?”

“Yeah,” Dean says warmly, eternal fondness in his voice. “I handled it.”

“I’m sorry,” Sam whispers.

Dean nudges his chin up with a smile, keeping their gazes linked. “You don’t need to be.”

Sam still feels ugly about it though, resolving to make it up to his brother tenfold. He drops his lips to the hinge of Dean’s jaw, pressing a line of dry, apologetic kisses down the column of his throat and over the spread of his collarbone, only pausing when he comes to the violent scar furrowed across the front of his brother’s left shoulder. The bullet’s still in there. They had no one to operate. It always will be. “This was supposed to be mine,” he says ruefully, lingering over the puckered flesh. The skin is white and faded and harmless by now, so many years later, but the memory of it fresh still keeps Sam up some nights.

“You manage to fish it out, you can have it,” Dean tosses out wryly. He skims one of his own hands down the back of Sam’s arm, gently latching around his elbow. The other he brings up into Sam’s hair, ruffling it back and forth and messing up his side part just to be obnoxious.

“Cut it out, Dean,” Sam says half-heartedly, but he’s mostly saying it just to say it. Because it’s what his brother expects of him. His body betrays him by leaning into the touches.

“Your hair’s too long,” Dean whispers into his scalp, nose burrowing in further between the now-untamed strands. “You look like Lauren Bacall.”

“No, I do not.”

Dean chuckles, his nose probably sticky with pomade by now. “Aren’t you worried some early bird’s gonna stroll in and catch an eyeful of their boss’s bare ass?”

Sam shrugs and closes his eyes again, settling further into his brother’s annoying embrace. “No one ever comes in.”

“How far in the red are you?” Dean asks conversationally.

“I don’t really keep track.”

Dean goes quiet for a moment, like he’s planning on letting it go, but Sam knows that would be practically impossible for him. “You’re a sad excuse for a businessman, sweetheart,” he finally teases.

And Sam actually welcomes it. He can’t help the smile at his brother’s words, the endearment softening the blow of his playful criticism. “That’s not why I do it,” he lets out on a contented sigh.

“Then why do you?”

Sam doesn’t have an answer for that, not one he’d be willing to admit out loud, so he just kisses him again.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  

“Heading out?”

Sam startles at the soft tone of Amelia’s voice. She’s standing on the bottom stair when he turns around, put-together and pretty, but docile in a way she almost never is. A sense of quiet resignation surrounding her like an aura.

She thinks he’s cheating on her. She’d gone so far as to secretly head downtown behind his back and sic a P.I. after him just to be sure. Dean may have told him everything last night, but Amelia has no way of knowing that he knows. His fiancée thinks he’s cheating on her with another woman and she couldn’t be more wrong.

A small, hypocritically vindictive part of Sam almost wants to tell her the truth, just to wipe the betrayal from her face and replace it with something else—horror, maybe—but he can’t actually bring himself to. He never would. Plus, it wouldn’t be fair. Sam’s certainly done his fair share of _exactly_ what she suspects him of. Memories of Ruby briefly flit through his mind again before he can shove them away.

Sam plays calm— _innocent_ —and turns back around to scoop his keys out of the shallow bowl by the front door. Amelia had gifted it to him for no particular reason a few months ago, a present passed along from one of her friends at the office. There are paw prints along the rim. “Yeah,” he says casually, hint of a forced smile stretching the edges of his mouth. “I’m already a little late and the band wanted to go over the set list tonight.” He slips his keys into his pocket and keeps his hand there, hiding behind the meager sense of security it brings him. “I’ll be home when I can.”

Amelia looks at him for a heavy moment and doesn’t say a word. The antique cuckoo clock she keeps in the foyer faintly chimes out seven o’clock and a muted hopelessness settles over her eyes by the last knell. “Have a good evening,” she says politely, knowing that he won’t be coming home until the inky darkness has already begun to fade into the faint fingers of dawn.

“You too, baby,” Sam says kindly in return, knowing that she knows why.

Neither of them let out what’s on their mind or on their tongues. They each have something to accuse each other of, Amelia’s hefting more weight than his, but still. They stand there for a long time, each choked by their own silence.

“I’ll see you when you get back,” Amelia finally says, wiping her hands on the hem of her skirt. She won’t leave him, not until she finds proof perhaps. She’ll still be waiting for him here tonight.

Sam’s throat goes tight at the realization. She might be waiting for him here tonight, regardless. “Yeah,” he says oddly, a sense of obligation and duty churning unhappily in his gut. She wouldn’t ever forgive him, he knows his fiancée that well at least, but she might forge ahead anyway. She’s already been married once. For some men, that’s a sin they can’t look past. Sam might still be her best offer. The thought sends another wave of unpleasantness through his insides, but it’s more for her sake than his this time. “I’ll see you when I get back,” Sam echoes weakly, and then he slips out into the dark, reluctantly closing the door between them.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  

Sam wipes down the already bone-dry glass in his hands for a third time before he realizes he’s been staring at the door hopelessly for the last ten minutes. At least at the start of the evening he’d been discreet enough to just sneak a few glances every hour or so. But the more time passes without Dean striding into his bar with a smug smile or a knowing wink, the more antsy and wound-up Sam gets.

“You look terrible, Singer,” Billie says as she slips onto one of the stools in front of him, unflappable as usual. Her presence at the bar means she must be on break already, which means he’s so preoccupied he hadn’t even noticed that she’d stopped singing.

Sam sets his _extremely_ dry glass down on the countertop with a tight sigh. “And you look lovely as always,” he replies genially.

Billie rolls her eyes at the lukewarm flattery, perpetually unimpressed by his efforts at camaraderie. “Been getting enough sleep?” she asks as she downs the nearest half-full cocktail some stranger had left behind without even a moment of hesitation. Sam doubts his _chanteuse_ actually cares about his health though, other than as a bored attempt at aimless small talk.

“Not really,” he says anyway, even if she isn’t listening. “Plus, I work too hard and I drink too much.”

That does get an unexpected shadow of a smile from the woman. Apparently, bitter sarcasm is the one thing that’ll actually charm her. “What about your old lady?” Billie asks bluntly. “Isn’t she supposed to help with all that? Y’know, bring down your _stress levels_ and such?”

Sam swallows back the lump in his throat. “That’s a damn forward question,” he says, trying to keep his reaction on an even keel.

His equivocation just gets another smirk from his singer though. “Hey,” she says, as flat and sincere as she’s ever been, “I don’t pay any attention to what ain’t my business.” Though there’s a glint in her dark eyes that bodes well for no man. “Except for when I do,” she adds after barely a second.

“And how exactly does someone go about _becoming_ your business?” a low voice asks flirtatiously, apparently attached to his brother, considering who saunters up to the bar behind her. Sam would be spitting fire at Dean’s brazen attempt at two-timing him if he wasn’t conflictingly appreciative for the same façade.

Thankfully, Billie just barely stifles a disinterested laugh right in his face.

“Hey, hotshot,” Sam says stiffly, “how’s about leaving my talent alone?”

Dean tosses him a devilish wink over Billie’s shoulder, and Sam tries to subtly shove down the low thrum of pleasure at getting exactly what he had been hoping for tonight.

“I spoke to your fiancée again today,” he says pointedly, casually resting his elbow on the bar in counterpoint. It doesn’t blunt the obvious turn of the conversation though, and Billie’s eyebrows arch up her forehead.

“I just remembered,” she says unconvincingly, “I gotta be someplace.” She’s up and out of her chair with only the slightest lingering of reluctant curiosity, but thankfully she respects his privacy—or her meager paycheck—enough to make herself scarce. The last two customers had already left half an hour ago. This is a good a time as any for a sensitive discussion.

“What’d you tell her?” Sam asks once they’re alone. As alone as they’re gonna get anyhow.

Dean runs his tie through his fingers a few times before letting it fall back against his chest, a nervous habit he’s had for years. “That you’re an upstanding young man,” he says with a tired exhale. “That you were working late nights because you’re such a dedicated provider, real hands-on in making sure the club runs smoothly.”

“You lied.”

“Yeah, I lied.” His brother crosses his arms together and leans forward over the counter, then catches sight of the glass Billie had finished off and tips it closer to check if there’s anything in it. The disappointed pout on his face once he realizes it’s empty is what spurs Sam to plunk a bottle of Marshfield down in front of him more than gratefulness for the fib.

“Why?” he asks, not letting go of the neck until Dean will look at him.

Dean holds still for a moment, then takes a deep breath and unscrews the cap off his whiskey. “You know why,” he says before taking a healthy swig. Probably because he doesn’t want to talk about it any deeper than that—figures that as long as his mouth is busy occupied by drinking, he won’t have to do any talking. The joke’s on him though. All he’s accomplishing is letting Sam watch the bob of his throat as he swallows.

“Billie,” Sam calls over his shoulder distractedly, “go home.” Then he flags down the boys on stage with a hasty flip of his hand. “The band too. Take the rest of the night off, guys.”

They keep their eyes on each other, furtive and intermittent, as the musicians pack up and filter out into the night. It doesn’t take them very long, charged as the air is between their boss and his mysterious guest. Nobody wants to poke their noses into anyone else’s business in this town. Anything otherwise can get you dead.

Sam tugs the bottle over to his side of the bar once the heavy door closes for the last time, taking a few swallows to catch up. “You could have told her the truth,” he says lowly. “Would’ve gotten you what you want.”

Dean wraps his hand around the one Sam’s got wrapped around the thick glass. Dry and warm, despite the chill outside. Then he slowly trails his fingers up Sam’s wrist, twisting softly closer until he’s stroking calloused fingers over his open palm and Sam’s stuck in his gaze like a mouse being hypnotized by a snake. “That what _you_ want, Sammy?” his brother asks in a rough whisper. Sam glances to the door in wary hesitation, but Dean catches the look—and its source. “No one’s out there,” he promises. “It’s late.”

“Not that late,” Sam manages to fumble out.

“Late enough.”

His brother leans closer, drawing Sam in just as ineluctable, and he scrambles for a protest. For some hint of reason. “There are windows.”

“No one’s looking in,” Dean says quietly, satisfaction and want tugging at the corners of his eyes. Sam can only hear him because he’s half an inch away from his stupid, perfect mug. And getting closer. Dean isn’t the only one leaning in, bending over the wood of the bar and ignoring the way its digging into his middle just so he can feel the heat from his brother’s skin on his own.

But Sam pauses at the last second, mouth open and breathing hard with just a sliver of air between them. “We can’t,” he says.

Dean lets out an amused exhale, slow. “We did last night.”

“Not when Singer’s was open,” he reminds him. “The lights are on. Anyone could come in.”

“You want me to lock the door?” Dean offers, intentionally lowering his voice another few notches until it’s three paces past sinful.

Sam swallows hard, forcing back the part of himself that automatically wants to give in. “I want you to behave yourself while we’re in public.”

His brother pulls away at the slight admonishment, but grins a Cheshire Cat grin all the same. “How well-behaved do you want me to be?” he asks, his eyes heavy-lidded and full of intent.

“Enough that no one catching a stray glimpse thinks this is anything other than a lush settling in for a drunken evening at my bar.”

“ _Lush?”_ Dean echoes with a wounded affectation. “That how little you think of me?” But he’s still grinning, well-versed in this necessary game of theirs. They’d played it long enough back in Los Angeles. Though Sam was just a lowly law clerk then. Only job he could get that wasn’t part of Dean’s ridiculous P.I. racket. They’d made believe they were strangers or acquaintances or associates over filing cabinets and Dictaphones day after day until they could get back to the safety and privacy of the one-bedroom they’d shared downtown. None of Sam’s coworkers had suspected a thing.

“Alright then, _barkeep_ ,” Dean over-enunciates, settling back onto one of the stools like he is just another customer. “Found out some more about your girl on the side.”

“Ruby isn’t my girl,” Sam mutters defensively, feeling the need to clear the air even though he knows his brother is only teasing. Well, mostly.

Dean doesn’t take the easy bait though, which is surprising. “She works for Luci, uptown.”

“The _mob boss?”_ Sam blinks dumbly, fully taken aback. “What’s she doing with a mook like Lucifer?”

“You tell me.” And the suddenly-stiff way his brother is holding himself speaks to the undercurrent of seriousness threading through the innocent request.

He runs his tongue out to wet his lips, just the slightest bit nervous all of a sudden. “I swear, Dean. I don’t really know her all that well.”

Dean holds his gaze for a long beat, but finally seems to find what he’s looking for and relaxes back into his seat, bunched posture and wide shoulders settling in for the long haul. Sam’s not sure why, but it feels like a reprieve. “Alright, I gotta ask, Sammy,” he says, unconsciously tapping a fingernail against the lacquered wood of the bar. “What the hell were you even _doing_ with a gal like that?”

Sam’s lips pull into a smirk before he can help himself. “She reminded me of you,” he says honestly.

“I think I’m insulted.”

“You probably should be.”

Dean lets out an amused huff, but he stops tapping, slipping his hands back into his lap. “How’d you meet her?” he asks shrewdly, trying for subtle and instead sinking back into years of long-ingrained habits.

But the professional tinge to his brother’s question just stokes the low fire Sam’s been sheltering in his belly since the previous night. It had been dormant for so long, and now he just wants it to burn. “Is this an interrogation, detective?” he questions, half teasing and wholly hopeful.

Dean reads him like a pulp magazine, tipping his hat back with a smirk and a deliberate flick of his thumb that he knows is painfully arousing. “When and where did you first meet the suspect?” he asks, leaning in slow, each word intentionally and playfully drawn out.

Sam has to bite at his lower lip to curtail a daffy grin, but he doesn’t join in the playacting himself. “She came into the club a few times.”

“That’s it?” Dean asks, and judging from the dissatisfied look on his face, the brief game is over.

Sam grants his brother an embarrassed nod. “Yeah, that’s it,” he says, then reaches out to take another long sip from their shared bottle.

“Sheesh,” Dean says quietly, more pensive than he usually goes in for. “You move fast, kid.”

Something about the harmless comment strikes him funny and Sam can’t stop the truth from pouring out of his mouth. Probably lubricated by the liquor. “Sometimes I think I’m stuck like a glacier,” he waxes tipsy and bittersweet, “never moving forward at all.”

There’s a protracted moment of weighty silence as Dean doesn’t respond. “It is _way_ too late for philosophizing like that,” his brother says eventually, rubbing at the exhaustion in his eyes. “Or early.” He drags his hand down to cradle his chin, resting his elbow on the counter. “One of the two.”

Dean’s pinky flirts with the corner of his lip as he waits for Sam’s response, the movement idle and guileless. There isn’t anything seductive in it, or intentional. It isn’t a practiced move, like so many of Dean’s others…it’s just his brother. Whole and undiluted. So perfectly himself that Sam could drown in it and never regret a thing. He feels a sudden surge of need at the motion, fortified by the alcohol maybe, but it’s _real_. Realer than anything else he’s felt in years.

It would be so easy to succumb, but Sam can’t seem to get his tongue to work right. Can’t seem to form the words that would blissfully give them both what they so badly want. Dean frowns slightly at his silence, a familiar little furrow appearing between his brows as he tilts his head, and Sam sees his brother doing that exact same thing a thousand times in his memory. An infinite reflection of every year they’ve spent together. He sees Dean doing the same a thousand times more in the future, willingly by his side every day until Sam would never be able to forget. He sees Dean broken, beaten bloody and gasping for air. He sees his brother’s dead eyes, staring out glassy from a face that’s been charred to jerky, or caved in by heavy fists, or swollen up and bloated from a handmade noose.

And it would be all because of him.

Sam jerks away like he’s been bitten, lips and fingertips numb from the horrors of his own imagination. “You should go,” he says firmly.

“What in the hell?”

He grabs the bottle of whiskey and seals it up as quickly as he can with his hands shaking the way they are. It isn’t until he actually shoves it back underneath the bar that Dean gets up out of his seat.

“Sam, what’s gotten into you?” But Sam doesn’t respond. He can’t. He just focuses on wiping down the counter and keeping his eyes averted in fear of changing his mind. “No,” Dean breathes lowly, beginning to catch sight of the bigger picture. “Not again. Don’t you fucking dare.” He snaps a hand out to encircle Sam’s wrist, crushing and furious, and doesn’t let him free no matter how half-heartedly Sam tugs.

“Stop it, Dean,” he says coldly, eyes still on the lacquered wood. “I’m engaged.”

But Dean doesn’t let go. Doesn’t even let the abrupt mood shift phase him. “No you ain’t,” he scoffs derisively, clearly willing to fight tooth and nail to keep the tiny handhold he’d managed to claw out these last few weeks. He tightens his grip and leans in real close, using his other hand to grab a handful of his shirtfront and twist until Sam has to look at him for real.

“ _Dean—_ ” Sam tries ineffectively, but Dean just draws even closer. Passes right by his face, brief graze of harsh stubble, to whisper into his ear.

“You gonna get hitched, baby-doll?” he purrs sweetly, but there’s a hint of taut acrimony underlying his hushed words. “You gonna buy a little house in the suburbs with white shutters and flowerboxes and a picket fence? You gonna go home to your pretty little wife every night?” Dean doesn’t wait for an invitation this time. He angrily kicks open the swinging half-door set into the bar, never releasing his iron hold on Sam’s wrist until he’s close enough to wrench him back against his body, Sam stumbling at the force of Dean’s pull. Large, rough-knuckled hands spanning the breadth of his lower belly, hard chest crushed against his back, cigarettes and booze heavy on his brother’s breath. He’s everything Amelia could never, _would_ never be and it makes a different kind of sickness swoop low in Sam’s gut. “You don’t want that, Sammy,” Dean hisses, decided and uncompromising. “Your stomach’s tied up in knots just thinking about it.”

Sam swallows hard and screws his eyes shut until he can feel his head start to ache. They’re right out in the open like this. Anyone could happen to walk in and see. Dean’s gambling on the razor’s edge with their lives. “I gave her a diamond ring,” Sam eventually manages to force out, everything in him fighting not to give into the agonizing temptation at his back.

“Let her keep it.”

“It’s supposed to be a promise.”

“Yeah?” his brother snipes. “You’re supposed to remain faithful too. How you doing on that end?” Dean pulls in a controlled breath and slowly relaxes his hands, letting them wander over Sam’s hips. “I’m done letting you go, kid,” he says possessively. “I did it with Jess, and I did it with Amelia, but I’m getting fucking sick of it.”

Something in Sam’s heart flickers and leaps at the promise, but he very quickly smothers it back down. “That’s not your call.”

“Yeah,” Dean says lowly, “it really is.” He lets out a terse sigh, sharp and short, and finally melts against Sam’s back. Stops trying to forcibly cage him in and just holds him instead. “Why do you insist on doing this to yourself?” he asks. “Why do you do it to _us?”_

Sam involuntarily tenses up in his embrace. “You’re not an idiot, Dean,” he says tightly. “You know why.”

“No, sugar, I really don’t.”

Sam violently scrabbles out of Dean’s hold with a well-placed elbow to the softest part of his torso. He ignores his brother’s pained noise of protest until he’s completely free again, glaring down at Dean with frustration in his eyes. “You hear what people say, same as everybody.”

Dean’s wincing a little, one hand over his stomach to belatedly protect it, but he stands his ground. “You care too much what other people think.”

“Right,” Sam snits, raking an angry hand through his hair. “It was _caring_ too much when the other kids at Bobby’s would goggle at us like we were moon men. When the boys on Lawrence Street used to throw rocks at our apartment window.”

“They’re just kids, Sam.”

“And older men _listen!_ You’re a damn fool if you think they don’t!” Sam tries to take in a breath to calm himself down, but it does absolutely nothing to cool his temper. “It starts with the jokes,” he continues, just as heated, “the smart-mouthed comments, sure, but then Mrs. Case from the flower shop is coming up to me and asking why I haven’t settled down with a nice girl yet. And Victor from the cannery is making some wise-guy crack about your unusual _tastes_.”

Dean rolls his eyes so exaggeratedly, Sam’s surprised they don’t just get the whole thing over with and tumble all the way into his skull. “Yeah, _fine_ , Sam,” he says insufferably, “but that was the Bible Belt. We were doing just swell in Los Angeles before you up and flew the coop. Make me chase you across the damn country, lengthwise,” he mutters under his breath, mostly to himself. He reaches for whatever’s in his breast pocket, then curls his fingers into a reluctant fist and willfully shoves it down by his side instead. Abstaining, and clearly pissed about it.

Sam tries to keep a hold on his righteous anger, the prudent fear propelling his every move to keep Dean—to keep them _both_ safe—but he can’t see anything other than bitter confusion and heartache splashed across his brother’s features and the fight suddenly leaves him like smoke slipping through his fingertips. “Jesse and Cesar didn’t get caught in an accidental house fire, Dean,” Sam says, quiet. Defeated. “You know that.”

And Dean finally gets it, after all these long years; battered sympathy filtering in over the edges of his earlier spite. He’s silent for a long time before speaking up again. “So we be more careful than that,” he says softly, taking a tentative step closer.

Sam shakes his head. He closes his eyes and hardens his heart as best he can rather than let himself be seduced by the foolishly shortsighted vow, no matter how enticing it is. “I don’t think we can be,” he says roughly.

“I can protect you, sweetheart,” Dean assures him, close enough now that he can slide a steady hand up to cradle his cheek. Can press warm against his chest with the other.

But Sam’s never doubted that fact. Not for one moment in his life. “That’s not what I’m afraid of,” he whispers, raw and authentic in a way it hurts to admit. He can’t even make himself meet his brother’s eyes. “I don’t know if I can protect _you_.”

“Sammy,” Dean says, tender and pitying, “nothing’s gonna happen to me.”

“You can’t promise that.”

“Who says I can’t?”

But it doesn’t matter. All it would take is one slip-up. They could be careful for twenty years, but one, tiny oversight on Sam’s part is all it would take to wipe Dean from the face of the Earth. Ground into nothingness by remorseless, evil hands. And it would be all Sam’s fault.

He shakes his brother off of him, pulling back far enough that Dean can’t latch onto the regret in his gaze. “You should go,” he says, turning his back.

Dean lets out a painful sigh from behind him. “Sammy, don’t do this.”

“Bar’s closed,” he utters stiffly, and has to heartlessly shrug off another halting touch to his shoulder.

“ _Sam_.”

“Dean, would you just _beat_ _it_ already?” he shouts, desperate and wild. He doesn’t even turn around. Doesn’t even grant his brother the human kindness of watching him go.

Dean holds stubborn and immovable for far longer than Sam thought he would. But he breaks eventually. Sam hears the excruciating punch of breath from his lungs. The vicious twist of his step. He lashes out violently as he passes by the bar, glass smashing to the floor in a discordant cacophony. Sam winces at the sound, but he doesn’t look. Doesn’t budge an inch until the heavy door slams shut after his brother’s back. Forever this time, if Dean knows what’s good for him.

Sam drops his forehead onto the countertop the instant he’s alone, wraps his arms around his ears, and breathes out all of his pain into the wood. Over and over again until he can’t tell up from down. Time pitching forward in staggering, lethargic bursts. He’s not sure if it’s ten minutes or two hours later that he hears the front door slowly creak open again.

“I said we’re closed!” Sam snarls, lurching up to give Dean a stronger piece of his mind until the numbskull gets it through his thick head.

But it isn’t his brother that stands there, ethereal and glowing in his doorway. No, it isn’t the _man_ Sam had cheated on his fiancée with.

Ruby looks like any poor sap’s dream made flesh, one arm dangling loose and confident at her side and the other hitched up onto her cocked hip—and nude as the day she was born apart from a pair of dark heels.

Even knowing about her association with Lucifer, Sam’s mouth still goes dry at the pretty sight. He’d touched and tasted every plush curve of that terrain, and it’s no coincidence that she’s using it against him like this.

The woman is bad business if he’s ever seen it.

“You should—you should put something on,” he stammers awkwardly, thrown off-guard enough to stumble over his words. “Wouldn’t want to catch cold.”

But Ruby doesn’t hesitate for a moment. “I’m in trouble, Sam,” she says lowly, voice just as soft as her body. It’s out of character for her—or at least, what he knows of her character—and the foreign gentleness in her approach would set off alarms ringing in Sam’s head even if this clear seduction ploy hadn’t.

“What do you want, Ruby?” he asks, trying to put as much disinterest into his tone as he can.

She just smiles knowingly. “I should think that’s obvious.”

“I’m not in the mood.”

Ruby steps forward anyway, carefully picking her way around the broken glass until she’s close enough to run a finger down his chest. “Are you sure?”

“It was a one time thing.”

 _“One?”_ she replies mockingly, arching her brow.

Getting Sam bogged down arguing over semantics isn’t going to help his argument, especially when she’s technically accurate about it. “It’s never going to happen again,” he says instead.

Ruby doesn’t even react to the rejection, gracefully sliding up onto the bar counter in one practiced move. Arms propping her upright and breasts pushed out enticingly, tempting to a fault. “Because of your girl?” she asks smoothly, looking for all the world like she isn’t interested in any reasoning he could give her.

Sam almost corrects her, almost lets his brother flash across his mind’s eye until he realizes that she’s right. “Yeah,” he says a little too belatedly, “because of my girl.” Dean’s gone. Dean’s gone for his own good and he isn’t ever coming back. Amelia is all Sam’s got now. “I’m engaged, Ruby,” he reminds her, firm, “and it’s gonna stay that way. So put some clothes on.” He digs his short nails into his palms and tries to ignore the deserved feeling of karma coming back to bite him in the ass.

Ruby lets an indulgent smile flirt at the edges of her painted lips, like she doesn’t believe him for a minute. Fair enough. Sam probably wouldn’t believe himself either, given their history. Then her eyes suddenly turn soulful in the next moment, big and sad, like she’s flipped a switch. “You’re the only one who can help me, Sam,” she says plaintively. “I’m mixed up in something dangerous. Got some bad men after me.”

“Men like Lucifer?” Sam can’t help but spit.

But Ruby doesn’t take the bait. She doesn’t even flinch. “Men like your detective friend.”

Sam holds her stare a moment more, then finally manages to get his limbs to work again, turning away so that he can grab the broom from under the bar. “Campbell ain’t after you,” he says definitively, intent on sweeping up the worst of the mess Dean left behind.

“How would you know?” Ruby asks, a little too harshly for the angle she’s playing. “He started sniffing around my work, my friends. Asking questions.”

Sam doesn’t look up from his task. “He’s not after you, Ruby.” _He was just looking out for **me**_ , he almost says. _You got caught up in the crossfire._

She rearranges herself behind his back, probably into an even more alluring pose, despite his inattention. “You don’t know a damn thing about it,” she says quietly. “I’m in hot water, because of _him_.”

“Hot water, I believe, but I doubt it’s because of him.”

Sam’s got most of the glass sorted into a tidy little pile by the time he inadvertently ventures close enough for Ruby to snag him, hooking him with her legs and yanking him in close by the waist. Snug and unyielding. He can feel the heat of her sex pressed tight against his lower abdomen. “I need you to tell me what you know about Campbell,” she begs gently, winding her arms around his neck for good measure. Until he’s caught like a rabbit in a slowly moving snare. “Please, Sam.”

He’s halfway to physically untangling himself from Ruby’s grasp, planning on simply removing her limbs from his person and ushering her out the door, when he catches sight of something ugly in her eyes. A fleeting glint of predatory anticipation. Of premature victory at the knowledge of his brother’s whereabouts. She quashes it back down the instant she realizes he’s spotted it, but it’s far too late for Sam to forget what he saw.

“You do this for kicks or what?” he asks darkly, trying to shove the manipulative snake of a woman off of him.

But Ruby holds fast and desperate, probably feeling her upper hand slipping away. “I’m here because I thought you’d help me,” she lies right to his face. And Sam has to hand it to her, she’s talented. If it were anyone else pleading at him, this overwhelmed and despairing, he’d probably believe them.

“No,” Sam says caustically, finally letting the broom clatter to the floor so he can use both his hands to fend her off, “you just thought you’d come waltzing in here and I’d sing like a canary.” Ruby thins her lips, either in disagreement or in irritation at being caught out, and Sam suddenly needs to know all of it. He can feel the dark sludge of his anger bubbling up inside him, no other way around now that it’s got a deserving target in its crosshairs. “Who even sent you?” he asks heatedly. “Was it Lucifer?”

Ruby doesn’t deny the accusation, probably realizes by now that he wouldn’t believe her even if she did. “Please, Sam,” she tries instead. Going for broke. A Hail Mary prayer with no shot of success. “I want you. I _need_ you.” Ruby squeezes around him tight, presses up against his chest and twirls her tongue into his ear. “Don’t you need me too?”

“Jesus _Christ_ ,” Sam breathes in disgust, finally managing to shake her off and press her back flat against the counter. “It isn’t gonna happen, Ruby,” he says firmly, arms locked stiff against her shoulders. A violent parody of a lover’s hold. “It’s _never_ going to happen. Not again.”

Ruby simply glares up at him in vain disbelief, letting out an incredulous scoff. “If you’re actually turning me down, now, there’s a reason.”

“Miracles have been know to happen,” Sam tosses back, dry as dust. He pushes away from her, snatching up the broom by his feet and flinging it back behind the bar with far too much force.

“Who you carrying a torch for, Sam?” she spits, all sour grapes and bruised pride. “’Cause it sure as hell isn’t your fiancée.”

“Get out.”

“What, can’t take a joke?”

“Get out of my bar, Ruby!”

Something changes in her then. The mask drops right off, leaving nothing but a blank, bitter mannequin behind. “You’re a fool, you know that?” she says bluntly. Rhetorical and cutting. “All tangled up in something you don’t even have the first clue about.” Ruby takes in an unhurried breath, gets herself back upright to sitting and makes an attempt to adjust her hair, though there’s no saving the pin curls. “Your detective friend is going after Lucifer,” she says. “Has been for a while now. Headed straight into the jaws of Hell and he has no idea.” She cuts her eyes back to Sam for emphasis, briefly drawing back the curtain on all the fire living inside of her. “And Luci isn’t the type to be caught off-guard. He’s got a shipment coming in tonight, it’s gonna be all hands on deck.”

It takes Sam a few seconds to remember how to use his vocal cords. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I know a lot more than most. You think that Campbell dick was checking up on me just because of you?” she hisses cruelly. “Because of _us?”_

“No,” Sam says numbly. “He wasn’t… _isn’t_ —”

“You’re an idiot, Singer. A blind goddamn idiot.” Ruby finally slips off the counter, stepping across his club with all the poise and self-possession of a queen. Wearing nothing but her shoes. “Hope you said ‘goodbye’ the last time you saw him,” she cuts over her shoulder, grabbing her coat from the floor and elegantly slipping it over her lithe frame. Ruby pauses in the doorway, just for a moment, her back a shapeless block of shadow. “We’ll all be dead by morning.”

And then she’s gone.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  

The lapping of the waves and the thick, muted clinking of halyards against their steel masts is the only sound that permeates from the docks this hour of the night, and Sam has to catch himself against a rough cement wall, panting for breath, as he makes an attempt to get his bearings. The ocean’s to his left, only thing he can make out for sure, but it’s almost impossible for him to narrow in any nearer than that with the way his head is spinning in terror. He’d bolted out of Singer’s fast as his legs could carry him, desperate to find Dean before he did something permanently stupid. He hadn’t even locked up. Couldn’t bring himself to care. Sam would rather the place be gutted, _ransacked_ by the time he got back, his whole livelihood flushed down the drain. Sam would welcome that outcome with open arms as long as it meant that he’d have Dean in tow.

Sam finally pulls in enough air that he isn’t seeing spots in front of his eyes any more and uses the momentary reprieve to scan the streets around him. He’d taken a few bad turns right out the gate, got himself turned around something fierce, but he’s on the right track now. Ruby had mentioned a shipment. She could only have been talking about a freighter. Sam ignores the way his feet are already aching in his dress shoes and sets off down the street again.

There’s a narrow alleyway one more block down that leads out to the waterfront. Sam had used it himself once, when Amelia had wanted takeout from one of her favorite seafood places. Of course, that was in the middle of the day and there were no shady mafia deals going on as far as he knew. Or maybe there were. Sam apparently can’t see two feet past his nose, given the way Ruby managed to pull the wool over his eyes.

He finally makes it to the mouth of the street and peers inside, keeping his breathing as quiet as humanly possible. If Dean is planning on sneaking up on Lucifer, he’ll be doing it from a vantage point similar to this—dark enough to hide a person from anyone looking in, but open enough that you could see out if you needed to. This is the only alley Sam knows of, but if Dean isn’t here, then Sam still might be able to spy another likely hiding place from the far side of the passage. He slips inside as stealthy as he can, skimming a hand against the brick to make his way through in the pitch-black darkness.

He only gets halfway down before he sees the body crumpled up against the far opening. Its back is to him, but the heavy, dark coat is unmistakable. A grisly heap of wool, silhouetted starkly against the dim light coming from the other side. “No,” Sam whispers through numb lips. “ _No, please, no_.” He stumbles toward the end of the alley, fear and grief driving him recklessly on until two strong arms suddenly catch him around the waist and yank him back into the shadows.

“What do you think you’re _doing_ , knucklehead?” a familiar voice hisses at him. “You itching to be plugged full of holes?”

Sam can’t even breathe the way the wind’s been knocked out of him, but he manages to scrabble together just enough air for a single word. _“Dean?”_

“Yeah, _Dean_ ,” his brother snarks under his breath. “Who’d you think I was?”

Sam practically collapses into the recognizable embrace, his knees almost going out clean underneath him. “Oh, thank God,” he chokes out, wrapping himself around his brother so tight that Dean’s the one who probably can’t breathe now. “I thought I’d—thought I’d lost you.”

Dean startles a little, but doesn’t quite disentangle himself with the way Sam’s burrowing wet and hysterical into his neck. “You’re the one who kicked me out,” he reminds him petulantly.

“No, I mean—” Sam finally pulls back enough so that he can make out his brother’s face, gray and washed out in the scarce light, but still the most beautiful thing he’s seen in his entire life. He simply gestures to the corpse at the other end of the street when his voice fails him.

Dean dubiously follows his gaze, unsure and wary, then does a literal double take once he actually spots the stiff, and pity floods into his eyes at the realization of what Sam must have thought. “Oh, sweetheart,” he breathes out. And it’s like their earlier fight didn’t even happen. Like they’d never been separated at all. Dean just hauls him back in, presses his face right up against Sam’s, and clings to him fiercely. “Christ, Sammy,” he whispers in muted horror. “I’m fine. Swear to god, I’m fine.”

Sam revels in the hold for one eternal moment before eventually drawing back and punching his brother right in his bad shoulder. “I can’t _believe_ you, Dean,” he scolds, sharp as he can while still trying to keep quiet. “Going after _Lucifer?_ By yourself?”

Dean rubs at the sore spot and tosses him a betrayed look. “Didn’t think you’d care,” he says sullenly.

“Stop being stupid.”

“You first.”

A low burst of noise from the docks has them both scuttling back against the wall, Dean’s arm thrown out over Sam’s middle as they wait out the moment in strained silence.

Finally, Dean deems it safe enough to speak again, and lays off. Though their bad blood is clearly far from over, given the hurt still lurking in his eyes. “You made it real clear I should get gone, Sam,” he whispers accusingly. “So what the hell are you doing here now?”

Sam tries with everything in him not to wallop his bullheaded brother one more time for good measure. “I’m trying to save your goddamned _life_ , Dean. You throw it away chasing some idiotically dangerous lead, what good does that do me?” Dean doesn’t give him anything in response other than a resentful look, so Sam shuts up to keep the peace as Dean pulls and clears the Colt from his shoulder holster a good two or three times more than necessary.

“When did you get here?” Sam finally asks after a few more minutes of nothing, sick of the tension in the air.

Dean lets out a sigh, maybe tired of the hostility as well. “Maybe two minutes before you. Luci’s expecting some kinda shipment any minute now. A big one, according to my source.” He scratches a thumbnail over his cheek and tilts a little to peer down the alleyway again, probably still curious about the corpse. “I report back to my client on what it is and I get paid. All I need to do.”

Sam twists the heel of his shoe against the concrete beneath them, trying to rub out the soreness by sheer overstimulation. “How’d you even get caught up in this, anyhow?” he asks.

“Some pretty little broad hired me. Redhead. Funny way of talking.”

Something about that pings Sam as important, even if he can’t put a finger on why. “Funny how?” he asks carefully.

Dean tosses him an unconcerned shrug. “Trilled her ‘r’s,” he says distractedly. “Probably European or something.”

“European,” Sam says flatly.

“Yeah, s’what I said.”

“ _European_ , Dean?” Sam smacks Dean’s arm with the back of his hand until his brother puts his attention back on him. “You get a case lands in your lap, drags you by the nose right into a whole mess of Jewish mob shit, _including_ , I might add, a dirty boxer up to the eyeballs in debt to the Irish, and you don’t suspect your mysterious foreign visitor of maybe working for those _exact same Irish?”_ he hisses in wild exasperation. “Why, because you were too busy looking at her legs?”

Dean lets out a self-satisfied scoff. “Trust me, Sammy,” he says, “her _legs_ definitely weren’t what I was looking at.” And he has the goddamn gall to look smug about it too.

“ _Christ_ , Dean. You ever try _not_ thinking with the head in your pants?”

“You ever try not being afraid of your own damn shadow?” he spits back.

Sam takes a deliberate, centering breath. Does everything he can to resist the urge to pull his own hair out. “ _All_ you have to do is watch, right?” he clarifies. “You get a good enough glimpse of whatever cargo Lucifer’s shipping and we can skedaddle?”

“Yeah, Sam. Cross my heart, et cetera, et cetera.”

“Okay, fine.” Sam cracks the knuckles of his right hand and falls into place behind Dean’s shoulder, then he looks down to the gun in his brother’s fist. “But no taking on a mob boss.”

“I’m not gonna take on a mob boss,” Dean mutters irritably, but he moves forward all the same.

They slowly creep up on the end of the alley, silent and careful as they edge closer to the exit. Dean finally gets far enough up that Sam can crouch down without drawing attention, and he kneels at the corpse’s lower half, reaching up to quietly roll the body onto its back.

It’s a woman— _was_ a woman—with dark, glossy hair and a full, wide mouth. And a ring of stark, mottled bruises circling her clearly broken neck. The perfect size and shape of a man’s hands.

“That’s—”

“Yeah,” Sam whispers dully, rearranging the coat to more fully cover Ruby’s still-bare body. She deserves that at least. Any woman would.

“You upset?” Dean asks quietly.

“Not really.” It’s the truth.

Though Dean gives him a silent once-over as he tries to suss him out. “And… _that_ makes you upset.”

“Yeah.”

His brother is rolling his eyes again when he glances back up. “Don’t trip over your own bleeding heart there, Sam.”

Sam ignores the boorish comment with a roll of his own eyes and slinks back over to Dean’s six o’clock. “We’re only _watching_ ,” he reminds him again.

“Yeah, I know. Shut your yap.” Dean mutedly clicks the hammer back on his .45, just a precaution, and sidles up to the mouth of the alleyway, back pressed firm against the brick until he can just barely see out. Sam can make out even less, stuck flat behind his brother, but they don’t have to wait long until the object of their stakeout comes casually strolling into view.

Lucifer, aka ‘Lucky Luci’, first name ‘Unknown’, calmly paces along the docks of the waterfront like he has all the time in the world. At least, that’s who Sam assumes the broad, sharp-dressed figure is. No dockworker would be seen dead in a full suit, hat, and coat like that. And it’s not like any simple merchant would have reason for legitimate business this late at night. Lucifer slips his hands into the pockets of his overcoat, does a little soft shoe at the edge of the pier to pass the time, and then tilts his head back to signal to someone out of Sam’s line of sight. Two suits step up to flank their boss quickly enough, hired goons probably, and the three of them gaze out over the water, waiting. One of Lucifer’s men pulls in a sizable inhale, judging from the expansion of his shoulders, though he almost immediately lets it out in a series of rough, sputtering coughs.

Yeah, you don’t ever wanna breathe in too deep out here.

“When’s the shipment supposed to arrive?” Sam ventures, leaning in to whisper out of the corner of his mouth.

“Shh,” Dean hisses back.

One of the thugs points into the distance and a huge shipping freighter slowly sails up out of the thick fog. Ominous and colossal. Lucifer’s two hired hands scramble like ants the second the ship docks, one sprinting off to commandeer a tilt-bed truck, the other waving his arms in short, silent jerking motions to communicate with the ship’s crew as they manage to gradually unload the awaited cargo. A single, rectangular shipping crate.

Lucifer pulls aside the first mate the instant he’s done, a firm hand around his bicep and an uncompromising tilt to his posture as he whispers something low and compelling in his ear, and then the crew is packing up and shipping out just as fast as they sailed in. Lucifer’s driver, the slightly more enthusiastic one—a tall, skinny negro kid, now that Sam can make him out properly in the low moonlight—hitches the crate up to the truck good and proper, but they don’t actually open the container to check whatever’s in there.

Sam almost presses the issue with his brother, to ask if they should create a diversion so they can get a peek themselves or maybe just slink away and forget the payout entirely, but Dean’s attention is locked solely on the mobsters’ proceedings. Grim and unyielding.

“You hear that?” he asks after a deathly quiet moment.

Sam’s gaze flits anxiously between his brother and the transport truck. “Hear what?”

Dean swallows hard and furious, his stare fixed intently on the corrugated metal of the massive container even as his eyes blaze with cold fire. “Cargo doesn’t _cry_.”

The haunting implication sends chills down Sam’s spine, but concern for his brother overrides his worry. “Dean, you promised,” he protests futilely. But Dean is already taking aim, one eye squinted shut, as he levels his gun straight at the cluster of gangsters.

“Get far enough away to cover me,” is all his brother says, sending Sam scurrying to obey before he pulls the trigger. No choice in the matter.

The bearded man to Lucifer’s left goes down immediately at the piercing gunshot, hat tumbling off his head as he collapses and the brim soaking up darker as he bleeds out, but the driver goes bolting the instant he hears the noise. He clears the wharf in under a minute, ducking around one of the exterior walls and fleeing into the night before Dean can get a bead on him. Lucifer simply ducks halfway behind a thick wooden post, the odd spare bullet chipping pieces out of his hiding place.

Sam stealthily sneaks out of the alleyway under the suppressing cover of Dean’s fire, crouching low and running fast, the hail of discharge peppering sharp and deafening through the night as good of a distraction as he’s likely to get. He manages to get himself behind one of the low walls before anyone calls out in awareness and sticks there, breathing hard as he takes stock of his situation. Sam’s on the far side of the docks now, with a decent view of both Dean and Lucifer’s profiles, but with no weapon or plan if anything gets out of hand. He can only hope that Dean brought enough ammo and bravado to cover his own ass.

Finally, his brother runs out of bullets and the telltale click of a clip being emptied echoes across the waterfront. Sam only panics for a heart-stopping handful of seconds before he can hear his brother snap another full one in. _Thank fucking Christ_.

“Alright, Luci,” Dean finally calls out, low and booming. “Reach for the sky. That’s it, nice and slow.” He steps out into the light, shadow cast long behind him and his handgun raised steady in warning. His soft-soled shoes don’t make a single sound as he closes in on the deadly mobster, gradually advancing across the wet pavement with each silent, menacing step. “Come out where I can see you and no one else gets hurt.”

Lucifer slowly unfolds himself from his hiding place, Sam ready to jump in with a needed distraction if he catches even the slightest glimpse of the man’s gun, but Lucifer simply raises his hands in the air, obedient as a schoolboy.

Sam squints across the way, trying to make out his features through the heavy fog rolling in from the sea. But it isn’t until he tilts his head back into the light, smirking under the wide brim of his hat, that Sam is able to. Lucifer is unexpectedly handsome, in a rough and tumble kind of way, with a heavy jaw and bright eyes, though the toughness is undercut a bit by his rounded nose, the mole set high on one cheekbone. There are a few, permanent age lines etched across his forehead and under his eyes, deep-set and warm, like he smiles a lot. It unsettles Sam something fierce to imagine what a man like that smiles about.

“That was rude, you know,” Lucifer says plainly, an easy expression grazing his face like he’s never felt an ounce of fear in his life. He holds still under Dean’s aim for a long second or two, then playfully bobs and weaves a little, just to see if the gun will follow him. He seems oddly pleased when it does, given the delighted spark of a challenge in his gaze. “You killed one of my men,” he says conversationally, sounding more entertained than anything else. “Scared the other one off, too, which means I’ll have to find him before he goes and does something _really_ stupid.” Lucifer purses his lips in an exaggerated pantomime and tilts his head slightly to the right. “That’s quite a checklist for three in the morning. How ever will I get my beauty rest?”

“That oughta be the least of your worries,” Dean growls, stepping forward even further. The lampglow hits him angular, light pooling around his ankles and deepening the creases in his suit. “Who’s in the crate?” he asks darkly.

But Lucifer doesn’t answer the question, he just lights up in sinister delight once he catches a better glimpse of the man holding him at gunpoint. “ _Dean Winchester_ ,” he crows gleefully. “To what do I owe the honor?” Dean falters at being recognized and Sam can see his hand waver on his gun even from his far vantage point. “Where’s little Sammy?” Lucifer continues, unperturbed. “Y’know, I had one of my girls go and scope him out for me a few weeks ago. Of course, that was before I found out she was sampling the goods. Had to punish her for that.” He smiles thinly—a brief, harnessed flicker of self-satisfaction. “I can’t really blame Ruby though. He is a pretty young thing, isn’t he?”

Dean tightens his grip on his Colt, the pearl handgrips flashing in the low light as he takes another fuming step forward, his anger making him erratic. “You touch a _hair_ on his head and I’ll—”

“You’ll what?” Lucifer asks, dry and unimpressed. “Point a shaky Roscoe at me?”

“You wanna find out how lead tastes, keep talking!” his brother barks. Lucifer zips his lips with a playful gesture and an amused raise of his eyebrows, and Dean pulls in a shaky breath as he tries to regain his cool. “Now how do you know about us?”

Lucifer tosses him a fleeting, crooked grin. “It’s amazing what tidbits you can pick up when you’re given unfiltered access to any reports and files that catch your fancy,” he says. “Uncle Sam can be surprisingly accommodating once you grease the war machine a little.”

“You helped the war effort?”

“I’m offended, Mr. Winchester.” He tilts his palms up, playfully patronizing. “I may be a poor excuse for a father’s son, but I’m no Kraut.”

Sam pulls in a quiet breath and slinks down below his concealing wall as the other two men continue to unnecessarily draw out their needless stand-off. Ego clashing against infuriating ego. He slips down around the side of the docks, lowering himself down to the pier with a barely noticeable creak of wood.

“The Irish tell you I was involved?” Sam can hear Dean ask from over his head. “You expecting me?”

There’s a longer pause before Lucifer finally replies. “Ah,” he sighs in amused realization, “MacLeod hired you.”

Dean lets out a dismissive scoff under his breath. “Maybe he did and maybe he didn’t, it ain’t my business to say.”

Sam makes it to the rigging behind them, silently wrapping his hands in the damp rope and crouching down at the base of the low steps. He can only make out Lucifer’s back from here.

“So what’s this whole skirmish about, Luci?” Dean continues out of Sam’s line of sight. “You and Crowley both trying to make a grab for the Italians’ turf? Or are you just squabbling over the leftovers?”

Lucifer’s shoulders go tight and Sam can tell his brother has hit a nerve. “You shouldn’t go guessing at things you have no clue about,” he says tersely, the first crack in his armor since they cornered him here. “It can be _dangerous_.”

Dean takes another step closer, gun still covering him, until Sam can just make out the lower half of his legs and his outstretched arm. “If I was afraid of _dangerous_ , I’d be in the wrong racket,” he tosses back.

A faint wail of sirens drifts up from Main Street, the police on the chase and getting closer if the increase in volume is any indication. They probably ran into Lucifer’s second man booking it away from here. Hell, maybe they even scooped him up. Sam lets out a hushed huff of relief from where he’s hiding. All they’ll have to do is stall Lucifer a little longer and the cops will be able to handle it from there. Crooked or not, at least it won’t be their problem anymore.

Dean twists around a little at the sound, probably thinking the exact same thing that Sam is, and Lucifer suddenly lunges for his gun before either of them can think faster.

He and Dean struggle for half a violent minute, his brother grunting in exertion as he tries to wrestle his firearm back from the sudden threat, when a wild shot goes off—whoever’s finger was on the trigger, he couldn’t say for sure—and Sam has to duck back behind the rigging before he gets accidentally ventilated. He readies himself for a quick bolt and tackle, but Lucifer’s got control of the gun and Dean in a chokehold before Sam can risk running up to help; brutally twisting his brother’s wrist until Dean lets go with a pained yell, Colt clattering to the ground, and kicking the pistol away with his foot. It goes skidding a fair ways from their scuffle, but it’s still too far away for Sam to reach without being noticed and he has to crouch back into his hiding place to not give up his position. There’s no choice now but to wait for the right moment. It’s the only chance Dean’s got.

Lucifer shoves Dean away from him, leaving him staggering, then coolly pulls out his own firearm, aims it square at his brother’s head, and smiles. The lines under his eyes crease deep and pleased. “Well now,” he says lowly, “who could have foreseen this coming?”

Dean swallows audibly, raising his hands in a mirror flip of their positions just a few moments ago. “Alright, let’s think about our options here,” he says tensely, roving his gaze over any and everything he could possibly use to get out of this, then startles a little when he unexpectedly catches Sam’s eyes. But he plays the moment off expertly, making like he’s just terrified of what Lucifer might do. He continues flicking his stare around a few more places before settling back on the mobster to keep him from realizing that Sam’s huddled a few feet away. “You sure you wanna do this?”

Lucifer’s eyes narrow in terrifying certainty. “Mr. Winchester,” he says smugly, “I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure of anything in my life.”

Dean sucks in a hitched breath. “ _Really?_ ’Cause I don’t think you’ve thought this through.” Lucifer raises a single eyebrow, but it’s enough for Dean to latch onto. “You can blow me away, sure,” he says hastily. “Give me a couple extra bullet holes and leave me bleeding out on the docks. But then that’s _three_ stiffs you’ll have to account for tonight, isn’t it? Your man, me, and that dame back in the alley.” He licks his lips nervously, stalling for time. “Now, a good-time girl buys the farm, well, maybe the cops won’t look into that too hard…but a detective? No, the buttons might not like me too much, but they find me dead in front of a shipping container full of what—women? Kids? Now _that’s_ a different story. They might actually have to investigate something like that. No matter how well you’ve paid ‘em.”

Lucifer seems to take his point, eyes shifting behind him to where the sirens are getting closer. “And you’re gonna what,” he sneers sarcastically, “let me split out of the goodness of your whiskey-soaked heart?”

Dean shakes his head shallowly, an expression like flint. “I want whoever’s in that crate,” he says. “You leave it here and we got no beef. I won’t even tell the law that Lucky Luci was involved.”

Lucifer shifts on the balls of his feet a little, weighing the prospective deal over. “I have your word?” he asks soberly.

His brother nods once. “You have my word.”

Lucifer tucks his gun back into his coat. “Deal,” he says lowly, then turns away from the approaching cars and directly into Sam’s waiting glare. “Who the _fuck—?”_ He’s out cold before he can finish his sentence, head snapping back under the force of Sam’s fist and crumpling unconscious to the pavement beneath them.

If he lives up to his nickname, he’ll only wake up to a broken nose.

“Took you long enough,” Dean finally snipes at him. Then he bends over, hands on his knees as he pulls in and lets out a relieved breath. But there isn’t any actual heat in the accusation.

“You had a _gun_ ,” Sam says indignantly, shaking out the ache from his knuckles. “You had a gun on him and he _still_ got the drop on you.”

His brother twitches his nose in irritation. “I’m off my game.”

Sam just snorts at the weak excuse. “You need to lay off the hooch, Dean.”

“Yeah?” he snits, still clearly a little bitter over their earlier fight. “You gonna be there to make me?”

Sam lets out a long sigh instead of engaging, then glances down at the unmoving mobster at his feet. “You think they’re gonna hold him long?”

“Doubt it, but what else can we do?”

“Cross our fingers that he hasn’t been paying his taxes?” he suggests somewhat facetiously. “Hope they nail him for fraud?”

“Yeah,” Dean mutters grumpily, “I’ll hold my breath on that one.” But there’s a ghost of a smile on his face, regardless.

The sirens pull up loud and bright, then cut off abruptly, just a few yards away. They only have a few scant seconds before the police are on them.

“Dean, I—” Sam tries to say, apologize maybe for what happened earlier, but his brother simply cuts him off with a gentle press of his lips. It’s oddly chaste for them, soft and dry and too quick, but Sam still finds himself chasing Dean’s mouth when he pulls away.

“You gotta talk to the cops,” he says fondly. “I promised I wouldn’t.”

And Sam can’t help the huff of amused annoyance that escapes him. “That’s low, Dean, even for you.”

His brother tilts his head in concession, a smug smirk playing at his lips. “I can go lower.”

“How?”

Dean fixes him with a nigh insufferable look, like a cat licking stolen cream from its chops. “You boffed a call-girl, Sammy,” he points out.

“What? No, it’s— I didn’t _know_ —” Sam can feel his cheeks heat up in sudden mortification. “Knock it off,” he says tightly, then turns on his heel and stalks over to head off the police before they can spot Dean. Because he’s a stand-up guy, unlike _some_ he could name. He’s trailed the entire way by the muffled sound of his brother’s laughter.

 

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

 

Sam _finally_ finishes explaining the situation to the cops while Dean hides between some of the larger docked ships gracing the wharf. He’s never been anything but a model citizen in this town, his fiancée too, and that affords him a certain level of trust, apparently. No one would believe that the owner of a local watering hole—and a pretty piss-poor one at that—could be involved in mob business, so Sam spins them a tale of happenstance and accidental discovery. And they eat it up like candy. Or, maybe they’re just as tired as he is, willing to look the other way as long as it means they can get home to their beds sooner. Whatever the case may be, they load a cuffed, unconscious Lucifer into the back of a black-and-white without a moment’s hesitation or suspicion. Probably just grateful they’ve got the collar, no matter the reasoning.

The girls from the shipping crate—near forty of ‘em as far as Sam can tell—don’t stop crying, even as they’re pulled out, one by one. Sam’s not sure what’s waiting for them where they’re going, freedom or a prostitution charge or deportation, but it’ll be better than what Lucifer had planned. Not by much, maybe, but still.

He waits until the police have combed the area clean, logged all the evidence away and picked up the two bodies, then sees them off with a wave and a promise that he’ll head down to the station first thing in the morning to give his official statement.

He won’t be coming in.

Sam closes his eyes and rolls his head back once it’s quiet, allowing himself to _feel_ his soul-deep exhaustion for a moment, then slowly makes his way to where Dean’s been staring out over the docks the whole time, hidden behind one of the massive cargo ships. His brother’s shoulders stiffen at Sam’s approach, probably expecting another goodbye. The sharpness of his silhouette makes for a jagged cut of black against the imposing vessel behind him.

“Nice boat,” Sam says conversationally.

Dean grunts in agreement, but he doesn’t move a muscle. It’s never a good idea to let Dean stew for too long by himself. He always gets melancholic.

“When’s it ship out?”

His brother spares him a glance then, wary, but he skims over the manifest all the same. “Six o’clock,” he reads gruffly from the posted sheet.

Sam nods a little at the answer, trying to curtail his expression. “Only gives us two hours.”

Dean freezes at his words, blinks for a bit too long, then lets out a breath that sounds like all the life in him has just returned. “You gonna drop a line to Amelia?” he asks, aiming for casual. “Let her know you’re skipping town?”

“She’ll figure it out,” Sam says quietly, slipping his hands into his own pockets.

“That’s kind of an asshole move.”

He shrugs, trying to feel worse about it than he does. “She deserves someone better than me.”

Dean snorts a little at that one, smile flickering at the edges of his lips. “What about your nightclub?” he asks.

Sam sucks at his teeth, then gives up with another shrug. “Billie can handle it.”

“That the colored girl with the killer pipes?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Dean gazes back out over the water as he ponders the notion. “Huh,” he says, mostly to himself. “Won’t that be a thing to see.”

They both stand there like statues, twin shadows cut out over the gray horizon, until Sam eventually nudges at his brother’s arm, leans into him and stays for a bit. “Your office here?” he prompts, relishing the point of warmth.

“Cas’s now, I guess,” Dean sighs. Then he chuckles warm under his breath. “Bastard always looked the part more than me, anyhow.”

Sam grins a the stupid joke, but it’s sincere. “We’ll need new names. Passports.”

Dean clears his throat, suspicious as a spring-heel in a jeweler’s. “Funnily enough,” he says, making an attempt at nonchalant and failing by a mile, “I happen to have a pair of spares.” He pulls two official-looking documents out of his jacket, then splits them between his fingers with a theatrical flourish. Like some kind of hokey street magician.

Sam rolls his eyes at his brother’s antics, but reaches out to snatch the papers from his hand. They look a bit familiar for some reason, and it isn’t until he cracks them open that Sam realizes why. _Geiger and Lundgren_. They’re the passports from his brother’s desk. The one’s he’d been working on when Sam had stopped by. The ones he’d claimed were for some enigmatic client. “What a fortuitous coincidence,” Sam says dryly, trying to hold back a helpless smile. He can’t. It feels like springtime blooming inside his chest. “So,” he says affectionately, positive that Dean can read it in his voice, “where are we headed?”

Dean glances over the manifest again, loose and easy. “North, I think.”

“North, huh?” Sam makes a contemplative noise. “You’re gonna need a leather jacket or you’ll freeze.”

“Oh, yeah?” Dean teases like they’re kids again. “Who’s gonna keep _you_ warm?”

Sam just holds tightly onto the glowing feeling inside of him. It doesn’t need to be said.

And Dean knows it too, judging from the intimate look he gives him.

“So,” he says eventually, “we got a plan for when we get…wherever?”

“Not really.”

His brother hums in amusement. They both settle into the uncertainty, more reassuring than it probably should be, as they soak up the fleeting feeling of peace. Dean comes down from the high quicker than he does though, never content to leave a gift horse be. “You gonna eventually ditch me again for some dame?” he asks stiffly. “A nice piece of normal?”

Sam lets a sad smile creep over his features, bluntly, painfully forthright. “I don’t know.”

“Great,” his brother mutters bitterly. He pulls a cigarette out from the pack in his breast pocket and gets it all the way between his lips before he changes his mind and tosses the thing into the water with an annoyed groan.

“I’ll come back though,” Sam says, honest to his very core. He doesn’t take his eyes off Dean for a second. “Even if I do, I’ll always come back.”

“…Yeah, Sammy,” Dean lets out on a sigh. He swings his hand out to wrap around Sam’s fingers, gratefully lifting them up to his mouth until he can press a soft kiss to each one of his still-sore knuckles. “I know,” he whispers into the skin.

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Detective's "Recognition"


End file.
